<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>In the light of the stars by Lavender_Seaglass</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28470834">In the light of the stars</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lavender_Seaglass/pseuds/Lavender_Seaglass'>Lavender_Seaglass</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls Online</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Aetherium, Anxiety, Craglorn, F/F, F/M, Mystery, Nirncrux, Transliminal Mythomysticism, Trust Issues, actually not that gory, necromancers are usually not your friend</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-11 01:08:17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>22,729</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28470834</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lavender_Seaglass/pseuds/Lavender_Seaglass</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In a desolate corner of Craglorn an itinerant mage takes on a contract with the Dragonstar Caravan Company to deal with a ghost which has been spooking its employees. It should be an easy job: she has, as always, made it absolutely clear that she hunts ghosts, not the undead.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. i.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I am literal trash. Please forgive me.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><strong>D</strong>ust dances in a blood-red sky, and she wonders, not for the last time, if the Deathlands are really where she wants to be. It certainly is somewhere she never expected to end up. But the pay is good, and the Dragonstar Caravan Company is an equal-opportunity employer, a fact which has put her on a payroll with some fellow undesirables seeking to hide in these treacherous wastes. There are deserters she has interviewed, she knows, who would be executed if they ever stepped into proper Covenant territory.</p><p>For some reason the troops who pass through this desolate way on the road to the pit of chaos which is Cyrodiil these days never seem to recognise the faces of their one-time compatriots. Orcs, Redguards, Bretons--what a motley bunch they are together even when not dirty with the hard work done in Craglorn these days. United as they are under a king whose reign seems like nothing short of a miracle, there are plenty of inner squabbles which seemingly keep them oblivious to the occasional dust-covered traitor walking past them on the opposite side of the rocky road. </p><p>After coughing up some pale grit, she pulls her blue scarf up to cover her mouth, and slips into the chilly pools of shadow creeping up the crags as the sun finally sinks down after a half-hearted throwing of its final light. Wind sweeps through the valley and wails as it funnels through nearby gullies. Each step she takes is careful, cautious. She is not unaware of how big and mean and territorial the scorpions are in this part of the world. And they are only one of the many minor threats posed to her by this current mission--there is always a chance that the ghost she has been contracted to deal with might actually be a problem that needs solving. </p><p>Most of the time they just need help moving on, having gone mad under the strain that being left behind in a place which no longer is for them has had on the fabric of their literal soul. But sometimes it can be a bit more complicated than cutting an already-frayed cord. Sometimes she has to be <em> clever. </em></p><p>The cave into which she ventures is ostensibly natural, unlike so many other nearby tunnels that were carved into the landscape long ago by the humans who had once tamed this land after the Deep Folk had done whatever it was that they did. Die? Disappear? Either way this cave is not Mer- or Man-made so each step is a bit dangerous, but at least there is no need to fear for traps littering the darkness here.</p><p>That is something which can always take her by surprise: how cruel and clever and nasty people can be when they don’t want others to take their accumulated things. Even when they are dead and gone and no longer have any possible need for their stuff. Always in her life there have been problems caused by the cunning of those who no longer exist in this world.</p><p>She is here now at night because all reports and eyewitness accounts agreed that this particular ghost is active exclusively during the dark parts of the day. This is why she needs to cast a spell for herself now to see in the cold, flat dark.</p><p>The going is slow, but not impossible. </p><p>Strangely, or at least unexpectedly to her, she does not encounter any life. No scorpions, no bats, no beetles. Not even a snake. Such a lack of creatures is notable in a natural formation like this. Perhaps this ghost is particularly hostile towards animal life. Perhaps this ghost is very territorial, almost petty. She has seen odder behaviour. From both the dead and the living. </p><p>She continues through the empty cave, and then something happens. It is no longer an empty cave, but an abandoned ruin, the transition is sudden and complete. The cave opens up into what is clearly a Nedic ruin, with masterful stonework and the baleful gaze of the Fat Woman staring at her undiminished across the silent ages.</p><p>Unexpected, but not unlikely, she thinks. Perhaps the ghost is a restless Nedic spirit which has tried to defend its once-forgotten space from modern invaders--those things which it can control about its territory, as opposed to time which wears away at it despite the undying mortal’s will. </p><p>Odder are the corpses she now finds littering the ruins after walking on a little farther. They belong to some of the animals she would have expected to see earlier, in the cave: desiccated scorpions, the flayed skins of bats, the viscera of snakes. And more inexplicable than this massacre of local fauna is the rotting body of what she recognises, at least in shape and aspect, as a wamasu.</p><p>Within the enshadowed archive of her mind a distant node glows dimly, its vague light just enough to rouse and distract the fluttering moths that are her thoughts.. There is an urgency in her step now that she remembers why there might be wamasu so far away from the mysterious mires of Argonia: human meddling which spawned the hateful thing called a Mantikora. If a ghost of such a creature is lingering here, it will be a vicious, ferocious thing, and best dealt with quickly. She is expecting to find the spirit or spirits which once animated a chimera.</p><p>What sort of twisted soul could be spawned by such fabricated life? She doesn’t know, because usually it’s the souls of others which have been stuffed into flesh which is not their own— it is necromantic perversion with which she is familiar.</p><p>Silence eats up the sounds of her careful steps. The welters of corpses are frightening sentinels which can do nothing to stop her trespass. Or they could be warnings which she should heed. </p><p>When she makes it as deep as the ruins seem to go before once again suddenly transitioning--this time back to a natural cavern--of all things a wooden door halts her progress. Though the cave is not all that damp, this particular material still seems out of place—anything wooden the Nedes had erected should have rotted away into something less impeding ages ago without some sort of magical intervention, and she does not sense any particularly strong enchantments imbued in the wood of the door.</p><p>Under the faint blue radiance of her magelight, she touches the door very, very lightly. She runs her ungloved hand over the splintering surface as she wills the world around her into the shape of a spell that is less a disruption, is more of a subtle shift in her view of the world from one blink to the next.</p><p>Detect Life. She witnesses that there is nothing alive on the other side of the door.</p><p>Which is good. It means no creeping necromancers, nor hapless victims which could be used as a shield or hostage.</p><p>So, after taking a moment to steady her breath, she takes her staff in one hand and leans against the door with the lean length of her body. The force of her effort makes way for her to enter. She then projects her presence as power she is not afraid to use, is in fact quite capable and willing to harness should it come to that. </p><p>It is both a silent proclamation and a stern warning sent out. Whatever might see her should understand without need for engagement that she is a force to be reckoned with. Her intention is to both dissuade and assuage—she has the means to both help herself and others. This is, to her, the only responsible use of power.</p><p>Such a display might strike some as silly posturing in a possibly empty space. Such self-consciousness does not strike her, not when it matters, whether there is someone or no-one or something or nothing to see her.</p><p>She is ready, and there is darkness in the cavernous space, but there is also light. Dim light which barely reaches the tips of the stalactites, which refracts sluggishly as a dark gleam across a multitude of viscous pools of what might be blood. </p><p>Spawning pools, she thinks, a foul source of life used for foul magic, before it registers with her that the light has a source and that source is a torch in the hand of someone. It is a tall shadowy figure, as thin and bent as a child’s crooked finger, hunched over something blocked from her sight by an outcropped crag shaped like a jagged brutal crown. The area the figure is occupying looks like a staging site for a ritual, like some sort of platform. There are detailed idols carved into standing stones with shadows playing across their ancient features, and the centrality of it gives it a commanding view and a place of prominence in the cavern. Directly below the crags that serve as a barrier of sorts between the platform and the rest of the cave, the thickest, deepest pool of red lays unnaturally not coagulating.</p><p>The figure places down their torch, and they touch something else that she cannot see.</p><p>Not yet noticed, she tries to find cover to conceal herself. After a quick scan, however, she finds that there is nothing. There is nothing this person--no, this undead thing she was not able to detect--will not be able to see over from their vantage point should they decide to look her way. So the only resort she has is to seize the still possible element of surprise.</p><p>To this end she sidles among the shadows carousing along the cave’s wall, rising and falling with the undulations of flickering light of the torch.</p><p>Though she has hunted plenty before, she is not a shadow-fused assassin, is not so clever as a Morag Tong agent or a soul veiled by the blessings of Nocturnal. Subterfuge is not her area of expertise. Nor is dealing with anything but the already dead. But here she is.</p><p>Dirt shifts under her as she soundlessly ascends the slanted rise that the figure must have also trod to get up to the platform. Only, she sees no footprints. And she curses herself for not bringing anything edged with silver, or even a silver ring.</p><p>Mara’s teat, she thinks, my contract explicitly says I’m not in the business of dealing with vampires. They had to have known--did they hire her simply because she was cheaper than a proper vampire hunter?</p><p>But here she is anyway, sneaking up on a pale, sickly figure engaged in something. By some unbelievable stroke of luck the vampire—a male, it seems?—is too absorbed in his work to notice her.</p><p>Until he does, and he turns around on her and actually looks scared.</p><p>He tries to tell her something, but he is too late. She raises her voice and says, ‘Look, I’m not here to start any trouble.’</p><p>He cringes, holds a finger to his mouth and then shudders violently as if he has been brushed by something repulsive. His eyes pinch in fear beneath the coppery fringe of his hair.</p><p>‘Please, you’re going to bring trouble upon us. I—‘</p><p>There is a ripple in the largest pool beneath them, the one closest to the platform. They both look towards it. His fingers are twisted together and held against his chest, his mouth still caught in a disopourtuned grimace. Her own staff is lowered as she tries to catch up with <em> what is going on. </em></p><p>Like a sudden and utterly loathsome realisation, a great beast that is many monsters in one emerges from the viscous muck below them. It growls as if to clear gravel from its throat as it ruts around for something with claws roughly the length of her forearm each. From where its chest is edged by the sanguine liquid and the top of its malformed, serpentine head it appears to be at least twice as tall as him, and he is not a small mer.</p><p>‘Right, well,’ she says, and there is a subtle switch in her stance which precipitates the flowing of her mind into a shape that is more appropriate for battle, and so make her offensive spells stronger—thoughts of rightful cleansing and justified protection burble to the surface of her consciousness, she bulwarks them with a knowing that she should do what should be done. Combat is not her strength, and she really is not all that righteous, but she has learnt a thing or two working in the field for all these years.</p><p>He then moves towards her, two graceful steps which bring her within his reach despite her start and a meaningful step backwards. Being touched by a vampire is never a pleasant thing, even when they are not agressing—his fingers are like the jaws of an ice wraith as he grips her shoulder, pushes at her, tries to get her to move.</p><p>‘Go, now. I’ll distract that thing.’</p><p>‘And then what?’</p><p>‘It will be easier for me to outrun it than you. Please, go!’</p><p>This she knows, for she cannot dissolve her form into a billion smaller parts. Now that she is closer she can see the redness bleeding in his eyes and the pallor of his skin, she can make a better guess at the strain which has infected him body and soul. His sort can shred their corporeal forms into mist. Which explains the lack of footprints.</p><p>She does not at all enjoy the contact, is in fact still shivering. Then she controls herself again, brushes her hand against his and then shoves him away from her with an emphatic exhalation.</p><p>Tension contorts his body, and she sees something like surprise flash through his eyes, though tempering resignation dulls his response at the expected and sensible rejection of him.</p><p>The mantikora is louder now, more avid in its searching.</p><p>‘Look,’ she says lowly, ‘I am getting paid to get rid of a ghost here.’</p><p>‘That’s very much not a ghost.’</p><p>‘It is undead though.’</p><p>‘And so am I, but you have not attacked me.’</p><p>‘I’m not in the business of damning mortal souls,’ she says in answer, and there is no kindness in this response. </p><p>He hesitates, confusion unhidden, and she knows then that she is far more capable than he is in this current situation. This does not bode well for either of their futures.</p><p>So she shoves him again, this time towards the door. She then brandishes her staff with a single motion and sprints towards the undead beast with a spell passing her lips. At the same time it has found what it is looking for—a great spear crowned with something red and jagged she recognises as nirncrux, a volatile sort of aetherium found exclusively in this part of the world. </p><p>Whether this beast is capable of such a thing, there is no magical defense forthcoming from it in response to her assault. It simply grips its spear and countercharges her. Whether death has stripped it of intelligence or not, the bluntness of its assault will mean any type of forceful offense she can muster cannot rely on brute strength alone--she will be simply trampled if it is.</p><p>A shimmering light coalesces above her head, quivers, and then a prismatic wall of liquid fulgence crashes into the beast who slices through it with a mighty swing of its spear. It then advances, only to have its body suddenly illuminated by a light clinging to it like down.</p><p>Tendrils of black edged with azure like corrupted darkness steam up from its chimeric limbs, and it is much stronger than she anticipated. Its spear crashes down at her again, a blow which is not so much blocked as blunted by her sudden ward and raised staff.</p><p>The force of their meeting weapons bursts as an angry sound and manic flash of light through the cavern, and she flies back into a wall with a spray of blood in her wake. </p><p>The beast growls, readies itself to charge her. And then gurgles, and it is evaporating before the vampire’s eyes.</p><p>The second charge never comes. There is not enough left of the monster to come at its felled opponent. Soon the animating sentience is no longer there to hate her.</p><p>There is silence in the cave. And stillness.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>.</strong>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. ii.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The aftermath of a first encounter, and the journey back which only one of them can make (for obvious reasons).</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><strong>T</strong>here is stillness. There is silence. There is emptiness, there is a void in which nothing exists outside of herself. Here she is, alone, forever, what remains after time has unravelled, all of it and everything unwinding with the death of the Dragon that went round and round around again, chasing only the dead gods knows what. A wheel turned without end, each spoke set down driven by incomprehensible forces that push with all their might. And then you finally come to the edge, and you look, and there is nothing but obliterating infinity. </p><p>So it begins again.</p><p>There was comfort, in this emptiness. A lack of anything was sensible in its way. A lack of anything means a lack of context, consequences, hurt. A cradle, a cocoon, a solace compared to what lurked in the dark. There were red eyes and a smile and the face of her true--</p><p>A hand is upon her. There is touch. Across and through her a rill of magicka shaped into a spell by a will which is not her own. </p><p>But she feels it, that there is no other heartbeat to animate someone else’s pulse. The thrumming is hers, and their touch is smooth and flawless and heatless as tempered glass.</p><p>With a great frightful gasp for air she throws her hand out and catches the wrist of his retreating one. Her eyes wide with the vitreous gaze of the bewildered, she looks across her mangled body at him, the tatters of her clothing. In the next second she recoils from him with a cry that echoes in the chamber as something hollow and almost comical in how plaintive and plain the disgust is--as if she were a child squeamish and retreating from a writhing nest of bugs. She cringes with both pain and embarrassment.</p><p>She holds her hand away from her as if her palm has been scalded by contact with him. Watches it as if she expects it to spontaneously combust, or perform some other act of treachery against her. And then she crumples in on herself, falling over as he helplessly holds up his hands and tries to calm her down with unheard gentle words and gestures. </p><p>He tries raising his voice and still remains unregarded.</p><p>In the end it is her own pain which subdues her. With a gnarled grimace she can only watch as he reaches out for her, hesitates, and then exhales, and it is clear that he is presently at a loss as to how to best aid her. But that he wants to. Despite the ochre red of crusted blood on his hands. The blossomed stains on what remains of her coat and tunic.</p><p>She stares at his mouth. Her widened eyes do not leave it.</p><p>Quietly, as if she is brittle and a loud sound might fracture her bleeding body and tenuous mind, he says, ‘Please, calm down. I’m not quite done, and it is very likely that your wounds will reopen if you do not let me finish.’</p><p>Her retort is swallowed and overcome by a gasp of pain. </p><p>With a shuddering breath she unknots her clinging, trembling fingers that are already slicked with a fresh weeping of blood. With the very tip of her longest fingernail slipped through the layers of gore she scraps against the bone of her rib, and then she retches bile and the remaining mush her last meal. </p><p>He watches her, and she watches him. </p><p>‘You--you touched me.’</p><p>‘That’s generally how healing is done, yes. Forgive me, I did not realise my condition upset you so. I know that it...well, puts people off. Usually not to this degree, but…’</p><p>Another sigh, and his gaze trails away from her, fixes on something in the darkness laying beyond the golden pool of light provided by his torch. His fingers twist against something that is unfathomable, unknowable, to her. She does not know him. She does not know what may or may not lurk in his past and haunt him yet.</p><p>‘No…’ She says, giving a weak shake of her head. ‘Just...tell me where. I need to know. Please.’</p><p>‘I would never dishonour you, stranger or not, I--’</p><p>‘Not that,’ she says, frowning at the sight of his emphatically waving hands. ‘I just… Don’t like it, you know. It’s not because you’re…’</p><p>After a tense hesitation in which they both watch his hovering hand, he lays his palm upon her side and gently curves it along the lines of her ribs. Between his fingertips and the heel the span of his hand covers the width of her trembling torso.</p><p>‘This is all of your flesh that I have lain my hand upon. I give you my word, whatever worth it is to you.’</p><p>She sighs, she releases tension from her body, though she does not relax so much as go limp and spasm from the pain, suffer tremors that are aftershocks radiating from the oozing gash underneath his secure grasp. She does not intend to hold any bit of herself rigid but unspoken--and perhaps unacknowledged--stresses remain, something twisted deeper than the groove recently carved into her.</p><p>With his free hand he passes her her water skin and she drinks without promoting. Spits, then, to rid herself of the acrid burn of stomach acid in her mouth.</p><p>‘I am sorry if it’s agonising. I don’t mean it to be, but that thing’s talons were quite...well, disgusting. Extracting any potential contaminants was not an easy thing, but you shouldn’t have too high a risk for infection. Any more than usual, that is,’ he says, shifting his weight just so, finally concentrating and letting the weave of his spell come together again. The flow of his magicka is soothing, for what it is--vampiric, though it is not something vampiric which he is doing to her. It is a spell to restore, that is clear, and the strength of his intention is a vessel she holds to to convey her through the tumbling squalls of the sea of searing pain. All the same, there is a tint to it, something like an afterimage which glistens when she closes her eyes: a rain of ash, a dead blue void, a broken sky filled with the shattered remnants stolen from another world. </p><p>It is the taint of Coldharbour, a waft of something Daedric and deadly and not <em> right. </em></p><p>But whether he can tell if she is this sensitive, she cannot say at this exact moment. If he realises that she is more aware of him than most mortals could ever hope to be, he doesn’t say. Likely he has already done the math and calculated out to the most likely outcome: that she, like many others who are sensible, is less than calm knowing that she is in the presence of something which could feed on her and curse her very soul with eternal damnation should he choose to. Her suspicion of him having fed on her wasn’t exactly subtly conveyed.</p><p>And what could he say to that, in the state that she is currently in that would not rouse more distress than she already in? That he has fed recently? The explanation is simple but lengthy if he is to give an account of it earnestly. Right now his efforts are better spent addressing more urgent matters.</p><p>As the spell continues to knit her flesh back together the shock ebbs away. From a state of acute awareness she lulls and becomes something closer to placid. Her head sinks to his lap, and through the blur in her eye she looks up at him and asks, ‘What were you doing here, anyway? Were you hunting the ghost, too?’ Her voice is softer now, not so sharp as obsidian. Nor as incisive, though she has retained a commendable degree of lucidity. </p><p>‘I don’t know anything about any ghost that might have been here. I was here looking for something.’</p><p>‘What? How to forge for yourself an ungodly thrall?’</p><p>‘I would never,’ he says, catching the edge of her barb beneath his skin, feeling its drag as humour. There is no sting, no ill-intention, in the pull of it. ‘No, I was looking for what remains of the ritual that made that thing... The mantikora, the first time it was made, it was made partially using refined nirncrux.’</p><p>She blinks, her eyes flashing lurid for a moment--animated by a curiosity which he recognises from the occasional shine in his own eyes. ‘Refined nirncrux? I thought that red brittle was useless to anyone but the Nedes who died a pretty long time ago. I know that there was some sort of cult active in this area recently, but… They weren’t into necrotic rituals, were they? I think it was...ending the world or something. They wanted to usher in the age of the Serpent or the like.'</p><p>‘Something like that, yes. They were sort of worshippers of the Serpent. But the methods they used involved techniques for nirncrux refinement stolen...or recovered, I suppose, from the Nedes who used to live in these parts as you said. Supposedly that knowledge was destroyed when the cult was destroyed those years ago, but... Well….’</p><p>He trails off, his concentration wavers, and she shivers in the throes of a sudden surge of pain. Her whimper of pain vibrates up through the palm of his hand and stings at him whip-fast as a scorpion.</p><p>‘Ah, I apologise! I did not mean to… Ah, well, please rest knowing that treating you is my priority now. It’s not right that you bleed away your life for a stranger. Especially one who is actually quite hard to kill.’</p><p>She grunts, turns her head away from him, stares off into the flickering void which encircles them. There is quiet for a time, though not exactly peace.</p><p>‘Why did you do it?’ he asks into the silence.</p><p>‘What?’</p><p>‘I mean’--with his other hand he gestured towards her mending side--’if you don’t mind me asking, why did you bother defending me? I am grateful, of course, even if it wasn’t necessary. It’s just…’</p><p>‘Odd, I know. I don’t want to talk about it. Suffice to say I have my own reasons.’</p><p>She does not say it with malice, nor with cruelty, but with finality, and that is the end of their verbal interactions for a time. Over the course of her healing she dozes once or twice. When it is over and her skin is healed and pink as a rash over her ribs, it is hard for her to recall exactly how long she has submitted herself to his touch that is broken in the same breath that his spell is ended. As soon as he is done, she’s sitting up and testing the integrity of his work. She gives him a nod of approval.</p><p>‘Impressive, considering.’</p><p>‘Considering that I am a vampire?’</p><p>‘That, and you don’t strike me as the most adept of mages.’</p><p>‘I never said I was a mage,’ he points out. His expression is amicable.  ‘I am more of a researcher. An investigator, if you will.’</p><p>As she rolls her shoulder she snorts and looks up at the ceiling.</p><p>‘What? Like Investigator Vale?’</p><p>‘No! Nothing like that at all!’ He does not seem indignant so much as flustered, and she offers him a spread hand as a sign of peace. </p><p>‘I was only joking. But seriously--you’re an investigator. Okay. What were you investigating here?’</p><p>He does not answer her immediately. Instead he stands up, considers her, and after a quiet moment offers her a hand which she takes, and between the two of them they haul her up. She quickly pulls away from him and takes hold of her staff which he offers to her without saying anything.</p><p>‘You know that the Scaled Court was destroyed, right? And the Nedic knowledge with them? Well… I have found that, unfortunately, that which is thought lost often does not stay lost for long. Especially if it is <em> better </em>off lost. I’ve been working on tracking a particularly foul necromancer for some time. I now have reason to believe that he may be after the secrets of nirncrux refinement. I do not know for what purpose specifically, only that it is sure to be sinister and nefarious.’</p><p>‘And dastardly,’ she adds, spitting at her feet.</p><p>‘No doubt,’ he says, and smiles. ‘But your wounds--you are adequately recovered enough to move safely?’</p><p>‘Almost as good as new, I imagine,’ she answers. She winks at him, though it is likely obvious to his healer’s eye that she is still heavily favouring her uninjured side. A great deal of her weight is being carried by the staff she is leaning upon. She says to him, ‘I want to help you.’</p><p>‘I...what?’ He looks at her, flummoxed. There is a cant to his head and the coppery fringe of his hair partially hides one of his red-rimmed eyes. The exact colour of them she has yet to properly discern. Hazel? Some sort of earthen tone, or a colour of a semi-precious stone. Not the brilliance of glinting gemstones. It is hard to tell without proper light, and it is not like she is going to see him striding about in sunlight.</p><p>‘You said you’re after a necromancer, right? Look, it’s not my day job so to speak, but I am sure that my assistance could prove to be of some value to you. I’ve faced my fair share of practitioners of the dark arts, and I can be handy in a fight that’s not an ambush. Once I collect my pay for this job, it just so happens that I’ll be free for awhile.’</p><p>‘That is kind of you to want to help a stranger, but I won’t be able to pay you. I can’t even offer you a meagre stipend. I wasn’t given the resources to hire on anyone else in this case.’</p><p>‘Consider it charity then, if you will. For a good cause. I can’t imagine a better one than the eradication of necromancers of any stripe.’</p><p>He considers her, eyes flitting from her newly-healed side, to her eyes, down to his hands which are held close to his chest. His fingers fidget as his thoughts chase after one another. </p><p>Finally he looks up, says, ‘All right. But I need to get a few things together. Gather my thoughts and notes and see where I am. I’ll meet you here tomorrow? Around noon or so?’</p><p>‘Good. I’ll also see what I can find in town. Maybe someone knows something. If they think there was a ghost here… hmm, maybe someone might have a theory about someone who might be connected to it? It’s a bit of a longshot, but rumours sometimes carry within them a helpful kernel or too.’</p><p>He nods, follows closely after her to the door, a hand half-stretched to catch her should she fall. By the time she makes it to the door she has a better feel for how to handle her rebalanced weight, she is obviously strong or at least strong-willed. A moment passes in silence and she thinks he means to ask her if she wants his assistance out, but what he says is, ‘My name’s Fennorian, by the way. Fennorian. Fennorian, of House Ravenwatch. I do apologise for my absolutely horrendous manners. And thank you again.’</p><p>‘I’m Aislin Lesrvan. I’ll see you tomorrow, Fennorian.’ She parts with a gesture: a tap against her breast with two curled fingers, a sort of salute which touches just above her heart and comes a little bit closer to crossing the distance between them.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>.</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>Navigating out of the cave takes nearly twice as long as it took to enter it, but eventually she makes her way out. By the time she is out, the two moons have risen and bled their twin lights throughout the surface of the  cold world. The chill wraps her in a deadly embrace that squeezes, suffuses, and then she is shivering as she picks her way amidst the landscape cast in stark chiaroscuro. There are no nocturnal predators she is particularly worried about, but that doesn’t mean she shouldn’t be aware of her surroundings. </p><p>She has snuffed out her magelight and moves slowly, methodically, wending her way through clusters of rocks, the giant nests of wasps, past a shallow strip of water lorded over by the husk of a gravelclaw. Bats overhead swoop and dart like startling, half-realised fears. An owl hoots with shrill indignation a complaint inextricably tied to the night. </p><p>The wind howls as it races across the land, and what dirge or war-chant it cries, it is not in a language which she can understand. </p><p>She thinks she has seen the first flash of Dragonstar’s few lights when she notices that there is a hooded, huddled figure standing among the crags overlooking her current position. For a moment she stares. Then she is sure that the figure is staring back. Looking around, she considers her options, and nothing looks particularly promising as a hiding spot to wait out whatever this figure’s intentions might be. The shadows of the night may be deep but the cover they provide does not offer any sort of concealed escape. A portal is an option. One she is considering when she hears her name reach her through the night.</p><p>The figure tries again. ‘Aislin, right? The hired ghost hunter?’</p><p>With great care she says, ‘Yes.’</p><p>‘Ah, good, were you successful in your hunt? Clearly you’ve lived up to your reputation!’</p><p>‘Which is?’ she prompts. She hopes that if they speak more, she will be able to determine more about them, beyond the fact that they know more about her than she knows about them, and that they apparently have been waiting for her too.</p><p>‘Why, that you know how to get a job done!’ the figure replies. It takes a step forward, and in the light of the moons, some of its features resolve among the shadows and silvers and whites whose hues define the visible world. He appears to her to be Imperial, and advanced in years--an aquiline nose with noticeable wrinkles, a dark-coloured beard which had been kempt before but has recently been left perhaps a day or two untended. </p><p>With a laugh that sounds obscenely loud in the night he comes down from his place above her with surprising athleticism and approaches her. She straightens herself and takes as much of her weight on her good side as she can, doing her best to conceal her current condition. </p><p>He notices, however, and offers out a hand. </p><p>‘Please, let me help you, my dear. I’ll take you to the tavern, and buy you a drink to celebrate a <em> job well done </em>.’</p><p>She shivers, then, for a multitude of reasons beyond counting as surely as are the multitude of stars blazing above. Her senses go mad, thoughts darting, leaving her with a blank mind, a state of dangerous subjugation that stretches on for dangerous seconds. A silent whine of distress rises within her, and just then she barely has the presence of mind to cough to hide it. It is his hand almost <em> touching </em> her shoulder that finally triggers the fright which jolts her painfully into awareness of what is about to become reality. </p><p>Drawing back, she almost stumbles over herself. Curses tumble through her head as she rights herself, pretends to dust herself off. With a sigh she offers the stranger a smile, and says, ‘Thank you for the offer, but I’d much rather be alone. To spend time reflecting and praying for the departed, you see.’</p><p>‘I never would have taken you for someone so...<em> devout </em>.’ For a second she could swear that he smirks at her after laying that word knowingly between them, and it is a sinister smirk at that, like a flash of a werewolf’s teeth. But he dips his head, makes a ridiculous sweeping gesture, takes a step backwards. ‘But, your piety does you credit. At least let me offer you this aid. Dragonstar is that way.’ Now he is pointing with both hands, fingers spread, towards the place where she glimpsed lights.</p><p>‘I see. Thank you. I will be sure to make my way there after I have paid proper respects.’</p><p>‘Of course. I will see you later, my dear.’</p><p>And with that, he slips into the night as easily as a cockroach scuttles back into rotten wood.</p><p>She stands there for a while, unmoving, simply gazing up at the stars. The light of Aetherius filters down and illuminates her, body and soul, one among so many millions upon the face of blessed Nirn.  </p><p>This is her prayer: a paean to a world that is just as alive as she is.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>. . . </strong>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Hey there! Thanks for stopping by and taking a look at this story of mine. I am happy to share what I hope is neat little thriller/mystery with a bit of feel-good on the side. I actually have this one plotted out to the end. All that's left is to actually write it. As always, feedback is appreciated!</p><p>Thanks again, and enjoy! </p><p>I am still totally trash tho. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. iii.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>One more night at the tavern, and an appointment is kept.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><strong>D</strong>ragonstar holds for her this night an irksome blend of disappointment and providence. Though there is not much in the way of a stable population that calls this mucky outpost home, there are enough buildings and signs of living civilisation around her she is confident that, should she scream raucously enough, someone would intervene after coming outside to find out what in the world was making such an ungodly ruckus. Not that she couldn’t defend herself against most people, of course. She would just prefer not to have to adjudicate how to best punish her theoretical assailant. </p><p>The more remote nature of the town means, however, that when she finds all the windows of the Dragonstar Caravan Company’s building lightless she has no recourse to help her get her contract finalised and her pay in her hands tonight. Going up and knocking on the door seems pointless and a titch foolish. Who would answer? A dormouse? (That one will need work, she notes after cringing. Puns have never been a talent of hers.)</p><p>She will simply have to wait until tomorrow. </p><p>So she heads to the tavern, where she will stay in her rented room for one more night, where she will have herself a last hurrah before cleaning up and leaving the town behind her with nothing save vague memories of an unobtrusively helpful wanderer who trafficked in a peculiar but harmless trade. Her gait is still slowed by her need for mindful movements. She gives a curt hum as she makes her way along, her patience with her delicate state wearing thin, fracturing like the cracked leather of an old saddle strap.</p><p>She does know that she has no-one else to blame for this but herself. There was no need for her to so totally toss herself into that fight. No need to render herself so vulnerable and in need and consequently too late to pick up her earnings in a timely manner. It is her fault that she has to linger here for longer than she had planned. It is her fault alone that she, simply put, didn’t think it through. </p><p>‘Bah,’ she mumbles to the night, and swats with irritation at the empty air in front of her. A twitch of annoyance courses through her, and that is when she decides that she won’t stop herself from indulging this night. She is sore, anyway. A nightcap will help relieve the soreness squatting in her shoulders and chest.</p><p>There is still yet plenty of activity in the tavern when she steps inside. Several of the nirncrux miners have drunk themselves near to sleep in the corner, singing bawdy tunes to one another like obscene lullabies. Eyes follow her movements from the doorway to the bar, but by the time she makes it over to take a seat most have lost interest in her, having either recognised her, or made the same assumption so many others have made about her before: that she is a young man, a boy, and a squat one at that, who now also appears a bit gangly as he climbs awkwardly onto a stool. Such an assumption renders her nearly invisible to many eyes. It is not something she has bothered to correct very often.</p><p>Although it is a bit concerning that no-one seems bothered by the evidence of her bloody tussle griming up her once-neat appearance, there is a sort of comfort in it too. It’s telling, that these people are not adverse to struggle. Either that, or that they don’t give a fellrunner’s ass feathers about someone else’s business. That’s something she can respect.</p><p>A glint of something—like a precious thing shining out amongst muddy waters—catches in the corner of her eye. But she does not look, something else gets her tired attention.</p><p>The barkeep, as they always seem to do, appears to know everything already, and despite being in the process of giving cups and mugs a last half-hearted scrubbing for the night, he comes over to her and sets his hands down on the bar between them. He has already registered the state of what remains of her clothing, the wince she gives as she settles herself.</p><p>‘Rough night?’ There is amusement in his comically massive Nordic features. A hinting at the ribald, though they both know very well her troubles are not of that nature.</p><p>A grunt is her answer, neither a confirmation nor a denial.</p><p>She sets her staff up against the unvarnished wood, digs in the remnants of her pocket, and sets two gold drakes down with an articulate thud. The dead empire’s insignia winks in the light. Then the barkeep passes his hand over them and they vanish to a place more secure than the Dragonstar Caravan Company’s nearby vault.</p><p>‘You know, you Bretons are some of the only ones who still pay with this kind of coin.’</p><p>She watches him rummage. Without comment she observes him locate an empty and passably clean glass and what passes for vintage in a place like this. The liquid is dark and brilliant and rich like velvet as he pours it. She swallows, once, and then looks up at him. ‘Emeric really is into the whole “Empire of Man” bit. He’s an admirer of Reman.’</p><p>‘Feh, piss on him and his snowbacked kin and the snakes who followed them. That’s what the Imperials get for disgracing Kyne with a false, elven name.’</p><p>Something which isn’t exactly true, she thinks, but at just this moment a heat rises up from the base of her spine, spreads up across the plane of her back until it's radiating at the nape of her neck. It itches just like a rash triggered by allergies would. Because she is allergic to this sort of thing--politics, and religion, and being subjected to someone else’s opinion about them.</p><p>So she simply stares at him until he slides her her drink, wrinkles his brow, and gives her a look that says all she needs to know about what he thinks of <em> her kind. </em> Her gold may be good but her blood will always be befouled by the venal lust some mer felt for a human somewhere in the benighted roots of her family’s tainted tree.</p><p>It is something she is used to encountering in all of the world outside of High Rock--and the prejudice goes both ways. It is just jarring, sometimes, how quickly it catches up to her once she crosses over the arbitrary lines drawn across the world by the mortals who temporarily inhabit it. </p><p>She sniffs at her wine, clinks her fingernails against the glass. Takes a moment to observe her hands, which urgently need tending and cleaning. Idly she finds herself wondering if vampires ever need manicures. It doesn’t seem like they would get hangnails, but what would she know? She doesn’t even know if they have to bother with cloudy nails. Though surely they must grow nails, unless they only get the one set they died with?</p><p>With a shake of her head she reaches down, picks up her wine, and gives it a good slosh into her mouth. It burns going down, and she wishes that she had asked for something stronger.</p><p>Her throat complains at her as she places the glass back down and considers those in the room about her. The miners who are still conscious are now mostly working on leaving. There is no sign of the Redguard priestess who had, earlier in the day, preached a warning that this place they were all drifting through would one day be the site of the end of the world itself. The cycle would stop, the dragon that was the serpent would uncoil, and then there would be no more time ever again. Aislin recalls that that is not what the stories say about Satakal, but this was another case of knowing when it was better not to engage lest her allergies be triggered. The priestess could be potentially questioned about the Scaled Court--there being an obvious connection with snakes and their sort of creepy admirers--but she doubts that it would do either of them any good. </p><p>After an exhale, she finishes the contents of her glass and looks towards the man who is already returning, having spotted his next sale with a gimlet eye. She places two more coins down as he pours her another glass. </p><p>‘I have a question,’ she says.</p><p>‘Are you going to ask it, or not?’</p><p>For a moment, silence. A drum of her fingers. She considers him with a canted head. ‘You know my work. Dealing with the dead and wrangling ghosts. Do you know of anything else local which could be...let’s say, a job opportunity for someone like me?’</p><p>Between them another coin appears briefly. It is gone quicker than a burst of lightning.</p><p>He looks down at her for a while, chewing something in his mouth. Finally, with a smile, he says, ‘I might have heard a rumour or two.’</p><p>Another clutch of coins appears and disappears having hardly touched the wood they were placed upon.</p><p>‘It’s a foul sort of business you’re involved in. I’ve learnt that the more distance is between me and your ilk, the longer my life is likely to be.’</p><p>She waits, hand curled around her glass. </p><p>‘There’s been tell of some incidents caused by a crowd of pariahs recently. A group of mages took up residence in an old elven ruin to the east of here. For years they weren’t causing problems. But, you know how spellslingers are. Rumour is it’s not just daedra they’re conjuring these days. ’</p><p>An eyebrow arches as she says simply, ‘Conjuring and necromancy are not the same. The former is not likely to earn a bounty.’</p><p>And he, in simple reply, flashes her a rictus. ‘Closing soon. Hurry up with that.’ He gestures at her glass, and the filthy rag in his hand swings and slops against his branch-thick forearm. He then shouts at the rest of his patrons that if they have any last requests they had best make them quick.</p><p>‘Right. Thanks.’</p><p>And with that she pours wine down her throat, exhales crisply, and gives the bar an emphatic knock with her now nearly emptied glass. She does not move immediately, however, taking her time to turn herself around on her seat and survey the room from her perch. The fire is lower in the hearth than when she stepped in. Fewer people, almost no-one, remains.</p><p>But she is not quite alone. Among the last group lingering is a statuesque, stunningly beautiful Altmeri woman she would recognise anywhere, and it is singularly strange that she has not noticed her until this very moment. Such an oversight is sloppy--another slight against her once-passable record this day. In a haze of fatigue, surprise, and embarrassing hubris to prove to herself that she has not lost her touch, she stands up, sways, rights herself as if that is her swagger,  and then makes her way over to the golden-eyed, golden-skinned, golden-haired woman. She is the very essence of what her peers must idolise as perfection. It is almost hard to look at her longer than a few seconds at a time, like a light-born mirage.</p><p>Only this woman is very much real. Or so it seems--she notices Aislin’s approach, tracks her with her gaze, even takes a step forward of her own. She eyes the much smaller woman, her eagle-keen eyes coming to land on Aislin’s clutching left hand. </p><p>To her own shock, Aislin discovers that she has in her possession still the dregs of her drink.</p><p>By the gods, what had she been thinking? That holding it would give her courage?</p><p>She flushes, and is moving to spin away when the gorgeous woman says in a cultured voice pristine as aetherquartz, ‘What a state you’re in.’</p><p>‘Who? Me?’</p><p>‘Yes, you. Who else? You’re in a similar state to all of these others, but it appears it took you much less to get here. Is what you're drinking that much stronger? How interesting. You’re also...not like the others, are you? Curious.’</p><p>‘What?’</p><p>Between a sudden cascade of acute aches in her head and the other woman’s stirring presence, Aislin is simply not up for this conversation. It is beyond her, beyond her limited faculties, and even now she knows it would be beyond her even if she were stone-cold sober. It never would have worked out for her in any world.</p><p><em> This </em> has never been the sort of encounter she has known how to handle with aplomb or grace or even just enough competence to not make a fool out of herself. Her lips may as well be replaced by her loins for all the little difference there is between the two in this particular moment.</p><p>Normally at least she would have enough sense to not act on any of her inchoate ideas. Just now, however, there is nothing to stop her from holding out her nearly drained glass and offering it to the Altmer.</p><p>And what happens next doesn’t make any sense to her either--she takes what is proffered, smiles with genuine delight, and drinks, and the heat from their brushed fingers flares as an exquisite ecstasy even as it lingers as nothing more substantial than an afterimage. </p><p>‘I…’</p><p>There are a lot of things Aislin could say. Like, ‘<em> I think I need to go to bed now </em> .’ Or, ‘ <em> I believe that you are glowing. </em> ’ She knows without a doubt that she is <em> drunk </em> for the woman before her is veiled in an increasingly intense web of corruscating stars. </p><p>She watches that long, golden throat swallow beneath a festoon of lights. She listens as the woman says, ‘how awful. No offense. That taste was just--horrendous.’ </p><p>She holds out her hand as the woman returns the cup with a dusting of light motes and another painfully pleasant brush of contact. The Altmer bows her head, and then returns to her group in a wake of fluttering galaxies.</p><p>It should have been a sign, she will think later, when the woman who had given her the contract just a few days before didn’t seem to recognise her <em> at all </em>.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>.</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Because, of course, it was a sign of something. It should have come to her as no surprise the next day when she went to collect on her contract and she was told in no uncertain terms that she was a swindler, a liar, and a grifter trying to pass off a faked contract in some sort of lazy scheme, and that if she didn’t remove herself from this esteemed business’s premises promptly, she would be dealing with the law, thank you very much, I trust you can see your way out.</p><p>It isn’t the first time she has been taken in by a pretty face. It certainly won’t be the last.</p><p>Through the miasma of her questionable choices and muddled recollections of the previous evening she attempts to navigate a coherent recount of events which has led her to this point, standing in the middle of a remote mining town choked with the dust of a volatile aetherial substance, out of a job and lacking any foreseeable prospects, whilst cradling a tripod for her magical theodolite. What she has to sift through is a vertiginous swill of astoundingly potent wine, a too-perfect face gracefully lucent in candlelight and starlight, a dark beard, a wash of soreness, and scraps of a conversation her drunken-self at least had had the decency to scribble down the gist of before tumbling into an ewer and fumbling into bed without properly scrubbing beneath her nails.</p><p>She does have a meeting, soon, but that doesn’t do anything to ease the regret of how much money she had thrown at the barkeeper for what might turn out to be bad information, and won’t net her a profit either way. Chalking it up to charity is what she will have to do, an expense to add to her list along with wasted time, new clothes, and whatever else this endeavour will end up costing her. </p><p>It will be an expensive lesson, whatever in Oblivion she might learn from this. Though it is unlikely to be anything. Especially anything of use.</p><p>All the same, as she shoulders her tripod and starts out towards the west, her most sincerely felt feeling is that she definitely has had worse mornings. Better ones, too, but it’s been a long time since one of those had the audacity to show up in her life.</p><p> </p><p>.</p><p> </p><p>It’s a ridiculous thing, but she does it before she thinks the action completely through. </p><p>She knocks on the wooden door in the cave. </p><p>Here she goes again. Already.</p><p>A mumbled self-reprimand to remember that she has a brain which she can utilise is lost in the dark as she hears a surprising amount of shuffling from the other side of the door. Thoughts of how unstealthy this vampire is distract her from her embarrassment, and in a moment the door is open and he is inviting her in with a wide gesture.</p><p>This strikes her as a little silly, too, and she finds that it is with a slip of an earnest smile that she steps over the threshold as he closes the door behind her.</p><p>Then she notices that he looks just as dead he did yesterday. Whoever he fed on hasn’t had to make a public fuss of it, at least.</p><p>‘Make yourself at home,’ he says. He eyes the tripod hoisted over her shoulder for a moment, then begins to move towards the platform where she first encountered him the other day. </p><p>She sets the tripod against the cool wall near the door and looks at the space around her. </p><p>Shadows still fester in all quarters of the cavern. Flickers of torchlight over the spawning pools catch in the corners of her eyes as false omens of unnatural life. </p><p>Even with some familiarity of it it's still a fairly creepy place, so as she follows behind him she digs into her rucksack and calls up to him, ‘Thanks. Since you mentioned it, do you mind making it a bit more homey? I don’t find perpetual darkness particularly hospitable.’ </p><p>He turns to her with a question on his lips that is immediately overpowered by a small gasp of delight and recognition of what she is offering up to him. Already she is nodding that he may take it from her hands.</p><p>‘Ah, you have a culanda stone!’</p><p>‘It’s my own personal nightlight.’</p><p>The tepid self-deprecating joke seems to be wasted on him as he intently studies the forged product of aetherial detritus in his hands. ‘Where did you get it? It’s been awhile since I’ve seen one of these. They’re quite rare outside of the Summerset Isles. You know...I’ve always wondered how they managed to figure out how to temper the glass without compromising the crystalline matrix to the point that it shatters.’</p><p>The possible conversation prompted by his musings is one which intrigues her. She engages—doesn’t tell him to move on to the reason why she is here, doesn’t feel like she might be out of her depth. ‘Some people think they learnt those techniques from the Wild Elves who left the Isles for the continent and ended up in the Heartland.’</p><p>‘That’s one theory, at least. But even in <em> The Lay of Firsthold </em> there are references to crystals like this, as well as the Altmer using the magic of the stars as they establish themselves on Auridon. It could be that some of the Dawn magic of the Aldmeri is persevered yet. However diluted and unrecognised it might be. Wouldn’t that be something’ He says, and he admires the crystal he is turning over in his hands.</p><p>‘...But that poem also references varla stones, doesn’t it? Which supposedly were invented by the Ayleids after the elves left Summerset and settled Cyrodiil.’</p><p>At last he looks at her, his radiant interest not at all diminished by her challenge.</p><p>‘Ah! A good point for investigation indeed. Perhaps it was a poor choice of words on the part of a translator? I will have to check the original texts myself.’</p><p>‘You’re a linguist, too?’</p><p>‘Not really. Dealing with as many antiquities as I do, having some grasp of older languages is rather useful.’</p><p>At the top of the platform he again runs his hands over the smooth facets of the magickally-charged crystal which is now shedding warmly hued light like a shard of the sun. He wedges it into a small crevice in lieu of a proper sconce and it does an admirable job of lighting up the space, banishing the dark to a place of diminished prominence. </p><p>He turns to her with hands clasped and expression bright, illuminated by the steady yellow gleam. For a moment--and it is only a moment, truly, it lasts as long as the time it takes for her to suck in her breath and remember <em> what </em> he is--his red eyes are lurid as xivkyn warpaint. Then it passes, the moment is over with the realisation accepted, and before he can ask her what might be wrong, she takes a step forward and lays a hand on the crystal herself. It’s luminous. But there is no heat. </p><p>‘You know, I was recently talking with a scholar in Belkarth, and he told me something interesting. He said that everything the Nedes of the Deathlands achieved came from what they learnt from their slavemasters. The Dwemer, in this case, though Ayleids were also active in this area up until the Late Ayleid Period.’</p><p>He is watching her, attending her every word. Sure that she will continue, waiting patiently to hear the rest. It is utterly breathtaking, how open to her he is without any observable reservation.. A stray thought flits in fitful spirals around the periphery of her consciousness, a realisation that she cannot recall when she last let herself be so vulnerable, too.</p><p>‘That includes their methods to refine and use Nirncrux. I didn’t make the connection until just now, when you spoke about the origins of culanda stone.’</p><p>‘Of course! They are both aetherium! Studies of the Dwemer are not a strong point of mine, but it is certainly a curious connection. Both groups were able to manipulate aetherium.’</p><p>‘Both nirncrux and culanda stones are aetherium? Doesn’t that mean that they both can store power filtered from Aetherius?’</p><p>‘Yes,’ he says, nodding. ‘Though one of them, this one--’ he taps on the culanda stone as he speaks--’ is in a refined, processed form meant to retain energy. How exactly it comes to be so no-one but the smithers know, but the Nirncrux you find all throughout Craglorn is...well, not exactly naturally occurring as these things go. But it’s not been tampered with yet. The aetherial energy within nirncrux is inert without processing. But there are no remaining examples of refined nirncrux to study. Not even whatever it was that the Scaled Court got up to.’</p><p>‘That may not be completely true,’ she says, and she continues because she knows that he will ask her to elaborate on this exception she has broached, ‘The standing stones. The ones with the constellations. You know what I mean?’ A gesture in the air, the tips of her fingers coming together to indicate a slender shape with a prominent point.</p><p>‘Mundus Stones?’</p><p>‘Yeah, those! Mundus Stones. Well, that scholar I spoke to, he mentioned a prevailing theory among certain intellectual circles that the Mundus Stones found throughout Tamriel were made by Nedes out of nirncrux.’</p><p>‘So that makes them giant stones forged from aetherium with Dwemeri techniques for a purpose as of yet unknown?’</p><p>‘Something like that, yeah,’ she says. At some point both of them had huddled close together over the stone, both with one hand placed upon it. Now he breaks away to approach what could have once been a stone altar neatly arrayed with a collection of books and alchemical implements. He reverently picks up one of books and begins to turn its pages methodically, one by one, each laid carefully upon the last.</p><p>‘You wouldn’t have happened to have recorded your conversation, would you?’</p><p>‘Alas, no. I no longer practice my duties of Oghma.’</p><p>He looks up at her from the text, and they stare at each other across a devastating chasm. Any words cast into it would surely be swallowed up and never once echo. </p><p>Then, when the silence has become as heavy and suffocating as stones stacked upon her chest, she says, ‘But I do remember some of the texts he referenced. I think the Star-Gazers might have them in their observatory in Belkarth. And, ah, by the way… I think I have a lead in your investigation of that necromancer. I asked around, and there’s a group of summoners in an Ayleid ruin not far from here who might be indulging in more than just daedra conjuring.’</p><p>‘They’re practicing necromancy, you mean?’</p><p>‘Exactly. I’m not sure if any of them are likely to be a candidate for your target, but…’</p><p>He frowns for a moment, and the sight of it makes her pause. It is unlike his other frowns so far, what thoughtful and fretful sides of himself he has allowed her to see. There is something profoundly personal about it, she thinks. But she has no idea how to ask if she has somehow managed to offend him without embarrassing both of them.</p><p>‘Right, it seems like this group might be worth an investigation either way. If they are dabbling in necromancy, someone has to slap their hands.’</p><p>‘Or cut them off,’ she says with a shrug.</p><p>‘Hopefully it won’t come to that. Very likely it won’t,’ he says, and the discomfort now dampening his demeanour is not something which goes unnoticed. To witness it is unpleasant to say the least. Not that he is remotely defensive of necromancy, it’s just that she can see where his pieces will fall, should push come to shove. Such belief in the potential possibilities provided by better natures is rare in mortals--it is nearly non-existent among the immortal. </p><p>For good reason, she thinks, and it is not a kind thought, and nor is it something she is proud to know for inexorable fact. Whatever part of her might have been open to exploring any other possibility has long since wilted, withered, wasted away.</p><p>‘...Well, come what may, I am very glad for your help,’ he says, and means it, and nothing has changed but it’s easier to breathe knowing that he hasn’t judged her cruel and capricious and unworthy for her blatantly absent mercy. ‘Our conversation just now did remind <em> me </em> of something else.'</p><p>She observes him as he goes back to the stone slab, leans over it, and carefully picks up another book. This one appears to be some sort of journal: each carefully turned page is crammed from margin to margin with efficient, squared penmanship. It is far more utilitarian than the flowing mage script which she prefers to use when commiting her thoughts to paper. </p><p>‘Ah, here we are! This scholar you spoke to, did he mention anything about a Skyreach Pinnacle?’</p><p>With a step closer, he offers her his journal. The first thing which strikes her is a simple sketch with a terrible effect--its hateful visage seems to snarl up at her right from the page. Starting, she takes a step back, stares at him, finally turns her attention back to what he is showing her. This second look confirms for her what she suspected: it is the twisted mimic of a dragon’s mien which is aggressing towards the viewer.</p><p>Scanning a few lines rattles something loose in her memory: not a conversation, but something she read before coming out to the Deathlands. It referenced something else she should have read, but ancient Nedic is not something she is able to translate without some sort of aid. </p><p>‘No, not him. But… do you know what that place supposedly was?’</p><p>A shake of his head, a hand smoothing back his wavy hair as he swallows. ‘No, but the man I am looking for, it has come up in his writings before. I transcribed this from his notes. He seems to be very keen on whatever happened there. He mentions wards and imbuing animals with great strength using certain rituals… The wards supposedly keep these created creatures sealed away.’</p><p>‘I think we need to get to those summoners as soon as possible and see if they know anything. Because I think… Well, I don’t know what he’s up to, but whatever it is, it can’t be good.’ </p><p>‘I very much agree.’</p><p> </p><p>. . .</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. iv.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Getting there is more than half of the journey--it's pretty much all of it. And he wants to know whom he is walking with.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>So I won’t say that this is out of hand, but as I am writing this I am finding that there is a bit more to the story than I first thought! So that is why the chapter count keeps changing. I am trying to keep my elegiac tendencies in check, so that should help keep lengths of things reasonable. </p><p>I also want to apologise for the various editing oversights in previous chapters. I thought that I had done a decent job of cleaning up my mess; evidently that is not the case. Something recently happened which has made concentration a bit harder to come by. Hopefully I have straightened everything up.</p><p>Also also I swear that most of the ~magic~ stuff is actually lore or lore-friendly. Or at least lore-adjacent in a way that--with all due respect--is less wilful than some of Michael Kirkebride’s work.</p><p>Also also also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzLLLJlXqFs</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><b>S</b>etting out that evening they make respectable time through the treacherous countryside. Between his preternatural strength and her experience-bred resilience, verging off the main road to follow along the back trails she points out on his map does not present much of a hindrance to their progress. The main road, desolate in the day and deserted at night, is something they both agree is best avoided. The price of caution is one they can at least reckon—an hour extra, two at most. Should they encounter someone on the road, there is no telling what it might cost them.</p><p>They do not discuss him staying in a solid, corporeal form which allows her to know where he is by sight alone. She wouldn’t mind choosing otherwise since sensing him would provide no great challenge, just a commitment of some concentration. But his decision demonstrates a pleasant politeness on his part of which she is glad. </p><p>Presently he is sitting with his map spread out on a rock and held down by smaller bits of stone on either side. His finger is flicking idly a curled edge as he considers exactly how much distance they have managed to cover. The scent of the paper is pleasant, reminiscent of quieter, safer days, when she would sit for hours with her head bent studiously over books.</p><p>The night has passed its climax—the moons that some believe are the remains of a dead and gone god have begun to seek refuge for rest. It is now the darkest part of the night, the receding lunar tide heralding the dawn which must come with the rising of a triumphant Magnus.</p><p>Between the mark that denotes their destination and the finger circling their current location there remains less than half a night’s travel. As she watches him remark upon this she has a singular impression that he would be willing to trend in a world flooded with sunlight, if only she were to ask him to.</p><p>But she does not ask it. Not of him.</p><p>Behind his moving hand shimmers a faint trace of pearlescent purple lightening to a roseate pink. A subtle aurora is what he casts, but the longer she spends with him, the easier it is for her to discern these softer colours amidst the dun azure grey surrounding him, the ashen corona that marks him as damned for Coldharbour as sure as the perpetual pallor of his skin. </p><p>She blinks and the light around him has shifted elsewhere after him. Her attention returns to his leprous white face and their conversation.</p><p>‘It’s good to know that there’s not much farther to go.’ He makes a fresh mark on the map and then begins to fold it along its distinct creases. He runs a finger over the edges which crinkle with a pleasant sound. ‘I imagine we should turn in soon.’</p><p>‘Yes. It’s been awhile since I’ve been this out way, but I remember some burnt out buildings nearby. I doubt that they’ve been reclaimed in the last few weeks.’</p><p>‘It’s a shade more dignified than a cave, at least.’</p><p>She hums, agreeing as she sifts through her memory for any other details worth sharing with him. ‘I think one of them had a garden that hasn’t been completely destroyed. Maybe we’ll find something…’</p><p>She pauses, glancing at him, his carmine eyes on her, having forgotten once again what he is. ‘Well, something to eat for me, and some reagents for you. Which, by the way, if you don’t mind, I think it would be helpful to have a few potions ready just in case we end up needing to defend ourselves.’</p><p>‘A good idea. What did you have in mind?’</p><p>‘Well, can you make decent poisons?’</p><p>‘I am not as familiar with them as potions, but I’m sure I can make something serviceable.’</p><p>‘Okay. Then I think we should have some Damage Magicka poisons. For potions, maybe something with elemental resistance? And something to heal, and something else to provide some extra magicka.’</p><p>‘Hmm… I think I can manage something for most of those. The resistances will be a bit more tricky, as I don’t have any essences or salts with me.’</p><p>‘Mm, don’t fret if you can’t. I know my basic wards, at least.’</p><p>‘Be that as it may, I know that it would be easier for you if you didn’t have to worry about it, and just focus on combat instead.’</p><p>To this she gives a nod of confirmation. She wonders just how much combat he’s really seen—surely it has to be some—as their conversation comes to a natural lull. Towards the east a vague dark haze just a few shades lighter than the black above it is beginning to seep over the broken tops of the mountains. </p><p>They move on.</p><p>It doesn’t take long for them to reach the buildings she has mostly recalled correctly. Among the remains of a couple of ruined hutches is a building more solid than the rest, but also bearing its own scars. The foundation remains, and the fireplace, and most of one wall and a part of the roof. The rest is gone, lost to the consuming elements of fire, wind, water, and time.</p><p>They make their way over to these ruins. She sets her tripod down near the hearth, undoes her cloak, and considers how she can best improvise a bedroll for herself. He finds where the deepest shadows will remain in the brightest parts of the day. Sets down his few belongings in a tidy way.</p><p>Then he comes over to her and offers his own cloak which he has pulled from his bag. Held in his hand the fabric collects in a draped strip of void black, a chasm opened in the night, and it billows in a shape her mind seems to slide right off of. Several times she tries to understand this shape but it's like trying to roll a boulder up a steep slope. There comes a point where it’s just impossible.</p><p>Finally, she touches the fabric, and the glamour becomes obvious. The enchantment chimes faintly under her probing fingers. She puts her foot forward and it appears to vanish right from underneath her, the cloak having obliterated it from her view.</p><p>‘It’s not the warmest thing, but it should help a little.’</p><p>‘Are you sure?’</p><p>‘I wouldn’t bother you if I weren’t,’ he says with a gentle smile. </p><p>She means to accept the offer but there is still a moment of hesitation, a tremor in her reaching hand as she remembers the chill of his palm curved over her ruined flesh. </p><p>But he does not press her, and eventually time passes and in its wake is swept away any inferior feelings. The cloak she folds over her arm several times to keep its ample length from dragging on the ground. The air which wafts past her nose is scented, only vaguely, of clothing which has not been used in some time and stored in rosemary in the meanwhile.</p><p>With that accomplished he returns to his claimed space, pulls out a flask, and drinks deeply. </p><p>She leaves him to consume without witness whatever it is that he is imbibing. She takes her tripod and theodolite, her journal and some pencils, she takes a few steps away from the ruined building and sets up so that the scope of her device is faced away from the burgeoning greys of the encroaching dawn. She opens her journal and writes down the date and hour judged from the position of the stars. Then she crouches over, closes one eye, and observes the fading dark through several layers of focusing crystal lenses.</p><p>Quiet minutes pass. The strokes of her pencil are layered with the wakening calls of the first birds to rise and the partings of the last ones to rest.</p><p>His steps are soft but they are not quite soundless. Whether this is intentional or not she is aware of him behind her. But a mindful, respectful, distance is kept.</p><p>‘May I ask what you’re doing?’</p><p>She does not move immediately. Slowly, she straightens her back, pulls herself, turns to look up at him, which means craning her neck to accommodate him, and this is something that does cause some agitation. His height is a bit irritating.</p><p>‘Are you prepared to answer?’</p><p>‘I...I’m sorry, what?’</p><p>‘I’m just saying, if you start asking questions like that, I’ll have to return the favour. Are you willing to answer for your curiosity?’</p><p>‘That’s only fair. We are working together, right? We shouldn’t be complete strangers.’</p><p>‘All right, just remember I wasn’t the one who wanted to approach the line.’</p><p>‘Ah, that’s a bit dramatic, don’t you think? I just wanted to know what you’re looking at with your device there. It must be important if you’ve gone to the trouble of carrying it with you across Craglorn.’</p><p>‘This,’ she begins with a tap on the body of the theodolite. ‘This is for a project I’ve been working on for some time. I’m working on charting the cyclical fluctuations of magical influences so that I might measure any effects they could have on souls.’</p><p>‘Do you have reason to believe there are any such effects?’</p><p>She gives a brief nod, looks up to the sky. ‘Most ghost sightings are at night. I don’t think it’s a coincidence. I think that the veil between life and death might be weaker at night. It’s not the liminal barrier which is changing, but rather whatever channels which connect the realms of Aetherius with the Mundus. They seem somehow to be more active at night.’</p><p>‘Do you think it’s possible that the opposite is true? That the channels are more...restricted, so it is harder for the souls to pass, which makes them more restless?’</p><p>She shakes her head, considers her response, what possible one she could give, finds that it is one which is hard to share without providing an amount of context she is too tired to deliver well. </p><p>‘If that were the case I would expect to have already found a corresponding pattern of waning and waxing in souls depending on the strength of their respective valences. Presumably souls with higher Anuic valences would be more affected, for example being diminished in strength when Magnus is absent from the sky, and stronger when Magnus has ascended and the magickal tide is, so to speak, at its highest.  But I have yet to see such a pattern. Also, that’s definitely more than one question you’ve just asked me.’</p><p>‘So it is,’ he says. He dips his head and relents despite the interest she can see blazing in his pallid eyes, the clenching of his hands to absorb some of his piqued excitement. A hand settles on his own shoulder and he asks, ‘What would you know of me?’</p><p>Before asking, she studies the very tall length of him, from head to toe, allowing a moment’s glance at the silvers and greys beginning to sneak up from behind the eastern mountains. ‘How much blood did you relieve me of the other day?’ She swallows. Bites her bottom lip. ‘I appreciate you patching me up, but I would like to know if I am in any danger.’</p><p>There is a growing silence silence between them, not one that settles comfortably. His visage is graven with earnest solemnity. He raises a hand to his chest, pushes his palm flat over his sternum, his heart.</p><p>‘I swear upon my family’s name that you are in no danger from me. And should that change I would warn you well before my hunger came close to becoming beyond my control. My family—the Ravenwatch—we have vowed never to take what has not been freely offered. It is one of our duties performed in service to safeguarding the peoples of Tamriel from the more malevolent of our kind. My oath is to help those who need it. Not to hunt them.’</p><p>‘I heard once,’ she begins, and then stops, looks away. A hand finds its way to her neck, fingers pressing into the soft, warm, fragile skin. Her pulse has quickened. ‘That fear makes blood sweeter. It improves the taste.’</p><p>‘Whether that is true or not, it doesn’t make a difference,’ he answers.</p><p>She exhales, air and tension both leaving her chest. She finds that she believes him, though questions—including indecorous ones—remain.</p><p>‘...So, it’s sort of like a sex thing? It’s all above board as long as your partner is consenting?’ She is not looking at him as she says this, but from the corner of her eye she sees that his posture suddenly becomes artificially straight, like a soldier standing to attention. Unable to face him she picks up her journal and looks anywhere but at him. The remaining stars are at least an impressive sight as always.</p><p>‘Ah, excuse me, but I believe that is more than one question you’ve asked me, Aislin.’</p><p>‘You’re not wrong,’ she says, and is presently looking through her theodolite and nothing in particular. ‘Go on, then. Have at me.’</p><p>‘Are you able to trust me? I mean specifically despite me being a vampire. To be perfectly frank, I am very glad for your aid, but if we can’t trust each other it will be very hard to work together. Not to mention how tedious it will be. Walking on eggshells will only be messy for the both of us.’</p><p>‘I…’</p><p>She looks at him now, away from her work and right into his face which is turned to her and mild in expression. For all his manners and ruffled feathers so far, his admittedly careful and restrained handling of her, he is firm now. It doesn’t feel like a trap. Just a question, giving her both the empty ground and the stick with which to clearly mark the line between them.</p><p>Either he can work with her, or he cannot.</p><p>It’s her decision. </p><p>And, oh—even if she had one thousand days and nights without any sleep or duties to attend to, she could never convey to him her full and perfect answer to explain that she doesn’t dislike him, but the thing that is the source of the difficulty between them, she doesn’t have it in her to just let it go. That these wounds run too deep, like an arrow buried fletching-deep and utterly irretrievable—something which is not worth the grief of salvaging.</p><p>It’s too much. He and she both will have to settle for what she can offer. ‘Yes. For now. So long as you are standing against necromancy, I will stand by your side.’</p><p>And before the silence can begin to stretch out she vows, ‘And I promise that I won’t kill anyone. Once you’re done with this man, however, I won’t hesitate to turn him over to the Covenant.’</p><p>‘Now that is certainly something I can help you with,’ he says, gesturing and presenting her with a beamish smile.</p><p>Behind him shards of sunlight have pierced through the body of the night, their slender rays becoming channels which allow luminous colour to bleed into the sky. Of the faces of the moons all that remains is a fading vision succumbing to the present reality. The dangers are heralded and she will not ignore the signs however much her want for company has quickened for the first time in a while.</p><p>‘I think we really should rest now,’ she says.</p><p>‘That’s a good idea,’ he agrees with a nod. They go together to their shelter and settle down for the day in a place she knows holds no ghosts.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>.</b>
</p><p> </p><p>When Aislin awakes she is enfolded wholly in soft, silky shadow. Confusion sparks along the expanse of her skin. She reaches with her hands just so that she can <em> see </em> them before her face. Snatches of memory then dance slowly around her like falling snow that accumulates in time, and finally enough of it has collected, she can recall the circumstances which have led her to being buried in the warm warren of a vampire’s cloak wrapped around her. As she shifts she displaces layers of the fabric and allows licks of outside cold to drag against her skin. </p><p>Sucking in air through her teeth, she pulls the cloak closer, shivers, and takes her time uncovering her head so she may assess her surroundings. The sky above her, framed by what remains of an unknown stranger’s roof, is sprent with stars so crowded there is hardly room for void between them. The world is burnished with the light of the moons, though she can see that they have ascended past their zenith for the night. She is alone.</p><p>She has slept a long time, well past what she had planned to. This realisation kindles a vague agitation which fuels her desire to finally properly rouse herself. Her arms stretch above her head as she emerges from the shadowy cloak so that she can keep  it off the ground, and she folds it as well as she can considering it is suited for an elf who has nearly two feet on her. Why said elf might use the cloak is beyond her, but she is grateful whatever reason may be. She has not acquired for herself warm enough things for surviving out in the barren wilderness. Her new clothes, whenever she is able to acquire them, will surely have to have a few extra layers. </p><p>In the corner she finds that Fennorian has cleaned up a portion of the building’s foundation and set up a small laboratory for himself. Each implement is carefully and thoughtfully placed and utilised—every bit of glass and brass gleams brightly in the moonlight and starlight, the mortar and pestle have been brushed clear of every grain and globule which could be recovered from grinding, the small alembic, blanketed by an active fire glyph, has nearly finished distilling whatever concoction he has most lately brewed. Already a few batches have been bottled in glossy glass and are lined up neatly in a row.</p><p>She places his cloak near these things.</p><p>And he is not far away. When she searches she easily senses him—a waft of ash on the wind. She finds him searching among the scrubby flora of what used to be a well-tended garden. Rotten, sun-bleached wooden rods are strewn like scattered bones, the remains of supportive structures which had once helped the plants around her grow tall and strong and healthy and kept them from creeping and sprawling across the ground. She is not sure the potential purpose of each one she passes, but every plant seems to her a bit like an orphan: abandoned not out of a lack of love, but because of catastrophe. </p><p>Once, when the stars had vanished from the sky above Craglorn, devastation had come to the land. What exactly had happened she has never been able to quite get a grasp on, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, that just because people don't understand the nature of the disaster, it didn’t sunder them from their old lives completely and forever. </p><p>She finds him bent over, knees knelt in the dirt, his sleeves rolled up and his hands at work digging with a shard of pottery he might have found among the ruins. By his side is a pewter cup brimming a many-hued bouquet of flowers, such a selection as she would have expected to see in the springtime markets of Wayrest to be purchased for lovers to gift to one another as proof of eternal affection. She is wondering at the variety of colours when his broad shoulders hunch.</p><p>He sticks his makeshift spade into the recently-turned soil, wipes his hands.</p><p>Before he can turn around, though, she has come closer to him. She gets down on her haunches and gives him a small wave in a way of greeting.</p><p>He pauses, just for a moment. He quietly watches her. Whatever his thoughts may be he keeps them to himself. ‘Did you sleep well?’</p><p>‘A bit too well, perhaps’ she says, one brow raised in unspoken accusation. </p><p>‘I promise I did not put you under enchanted sleep, if that’s what you’re wondering,’ he says easily, a note of humour in his air.</p><p>At this she snorts—she almost wishes that he would try. It would certainly be an interesting struggle between their two wills. </p><p>‘I must have been a lot more exhausted than I thought I was. It’s been a while since I got that beat up. Though I wasn’t as lucky to have such a skilled healer handy the last time it happened.’</p><p>He is quiet for a moment, responding to the compliment with thoughtful silence. A thread of uncertainty twines around her chest and she hums softly as the air in her lungs is slowly tugged out. </p><p>His shoulders slacken and he resumes his work. She watches, waiting, wanting him to respond. </p><p>‘You should be more careful. I don’t doubt that you’re a capable mage, but it’s so very easy to get in over your head,’ he says, and he is speaking in a way that bears frightful testimony to some inarticulable experience. </p><p>It is not one she feels she can ask after. If she did—well, she might know him better, or she might not, but the settled sediment within would be dredged up, he would have to sift through its murky currents and give shape to such things that never should have happened in the first place, and once he did there would be no going back, there would always be shared between them her asking and his attempt to convey how much he has suffered.</p><p>He has been in pain. That much is clear. And that’s all she really needs to know. She’s lived enough to know what it’s like to wish for death.</p><p>The silence persists as she simply watches him busy with his hands. His shoulders rise and fall. He removes some plants from the ground for good. Some he digs new holes for and returns to the earth with mindful diligence. Her thoughts drift to the colourful collection of life on the other side of him.</p><p>The stars above, set and slow in their courses, continue along their celestial paths.</p><p>Finally she asks, ‘Are you gardening?’</p><p>‘Not exactly. I’m just trying to leave it better than I found it. I’ve taken some reagents, so it’s the least I can do. Someone may come home one day,’ he explains patting down some soil with his wide palms. When he judges it firm and smooth enough he looks to her, the shard of pottery set on the ground.</p><p>‘I think that’s really nice.’</p><p>‘It’s not especially magnanimous.’</p><p>‘No, not that—it’s just....nice. A good thing to do,’ she says, and she can feel the colour rising in her cheeks from the effort of trying to find better, more worthy words within her. She doesn’t want to settle for simple. The way she feels, the many thoughts she has—there are so many discrete things she wishes to acknowledge, so many subtleties to highlight, it’s been so long since she has wanted to share such things.</p><p>But he simply smiles, and he says more to her with this gesture than she could ever hope to say to him. ‘Thank you. That’s kind of you to say. It really isn’t much, though. Anyway…’</p><p>He turns from her. He picks up his pewter cup and when he faces her again he is holding between them the flowers which are a vision of a beautiful world however dimmed they are without the sun to illuminate their glories. ‘I managed to find a few useful things. I didn’t find anything that’s really suitable for you to eat, however. I do apologise for that.’</p><p>‘I...thank you for looking. But I do have food with me. I just prefer fresh ingredients when I can get them.’</p><p>‘Fair enough,’ he says. He gets up and so does she, and walking behind him she wonders for a moment if alchemical skills like his translate to a set of culinary ones, or if maybe he was a clever chef in another life, but both of these are questions she definitely is not going to ask. She has already made enough of a fool of herself for night, she has already stumbled up against enough hazards she should have seen coming even without the light of day to reveal them. </p><p>She sets up her theodolite and is glad to keep busy with her rote recordings as he goes about his business of measuring out liquids, pouring things into others, tasting and judging and then adding something just a bit more. In comparison her work is simple and uncomplicated. There is little art to enumerating any fluctuations she might happen to see.</p><p>Soon enough he has the potions and poisons made, and after that he is ready to move on. She packs up her own belongings, consults the map with him, and they judge that they will make it to the ruins with plenty of time before dawn.</p><p>So they do that.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>.</b>
</p><p> </p><p>On approach they find that the ruin isn’t so much a ruin as it is a place where some ruins happen to be. It is apparent even from a distance that there is a vast underground complex which yet remains at this site, on top of which stands some external structures in varying stages of decay. It is rare that there is so much space for these summoners to safely inhabit and hide in. He points this out to her, his voice bright with an edge of keen enthusiasm despite their purpose for being here. This is quite a find, he explains, and she trusts that it is true because she has explored her own share of Ayleid ruins. </p><p>In the sky above the visible stars still number in the millions. They decide together that they will wait until dawn is well underway before attempting to make contact so that their appearance appears to be more of an introduction than an intrusion. They plan to find some sort of shelter in the interim.</p><p>As they grow closer, there is stirring within her that turns into a nidge along the edges of her—fingers, toes, nose, even her concentration seems to be traced with something that glows like an afterimage whether her eyes are closed or not. She attempts to tell him that she needs to be still for a moment.</p><p>But, abruptly, a line is crossed. Her consciousness slips from her grasp, running like water downhill—inevitable.</p><p>She retrieves it, with great effort, but when her vision is forced back into focus the soft lights around Fennorian flare now like a storm of lightning has consumed him: great tongues of azure, and grey, and pink which is tipped with violet all lash out, and the air that he and she have moved through is changed and charged and the shadows they cast are great displacements indeed. But how to tell him this?</p><p>That the veil is weak here? That here all things and everything which a being who has a will and thus is sentient might do has a terribly measurable effect on the tides of Oblivion? That any act has a much greater chance of engendering daedrons because they are also now more Oblivion-adjacent? That here the dangers of even a small tug on a soul is perilous because any open door is one that is opened both ways and the abyss has always hungered for any scraps of the materials of the heavens?</p><p>She has no idea where to begin. She has no idea what he knows, and what he doesn’t.</p><p>But he has stopped, he is looking back at her, he is moving towards her. He offers her an arm and she tries her best not to need it. Despite her tremulous postering his concern is not deflected. ‘Aislin, what’s wrong?’</p><p>‘I just…. I wasn’t expecting...This place…-ah. I just need some time to adjust. No wonder...the summoners… I will be...I will be fine.’</p><p>Already, even as she expends the effort to speak, things are becoming easier. Her thoughts are once again hers to command. Maybe she can explain it after all, when she is acclimated. She is sure that, in the end, she will be well.</p><p>And then the whole world shakes and they stagger apart trying to stay upright. The rocky side of the crag before them falls, it unfolds its limbs, it transforms by horrible magic and it is animated as if it were alive. </p><p>‘...Gods’ sakes,’ she breathes, dropping her tripod, taking a step forward, her focus gathering now with all the force of her will and intent. Her staff is in her hand and she has moved ahead so that Fennorian is behind her. <em> This </em>is a spell she knows like the sound of her own name, a way to will the world to rights, something she learnt from a priestess of Arkay whose past was so heavy a weight upon her she could barely manage the effort it took to smile.</p><p>The veil, the line between here and there, is weak.</p><p>This frisson of knowing with her soul what most others can only learn—this is where it begins.</p><p>Within her mind surges vividly the roiling chaos that is the other realms. Unordered bedlam, pandemonium—the slaves pits of Coldharbour she can practically smell from her nearby companion. Hatred, pure and unmitigated by sentimental distractions, courses through her. What is black is black and what is white is white, everything has its nature and its place, and what claim does a dweller of the abyss have to the light? This is not their inheritance. This is not their work. All they can do is mimic, and in stagnation is corruption, negation, annulment. Entropy without cause. </p><p>She discharges all of this unto the creature before her, <em> banishing the Padomaic back to its place. </em></p><p>She can feel her heart drumming in her chest. It is a hot, wet, fragile thing which could be destroyed in a thousand ways. She would be easy to extinguish. </p><p>The atronach before her, lacking a daedric animus, lurches forward.</p><p>‘Well, that’s not good,’ she says. </p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <b>. . .</b>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. v.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>A rough patch. Progression and connections are made.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span><strong>T</strong>he first thing she does is move. By the time she thinks that this is a good idea, her feet are already moving, her free hand is grasping out at the scraggly branches of a long-dead tre.  This action catches her and jerks her around and she uses the momentum to fling herself ungracefully behind some rocks right as the atronach comes sliding along tearing up the ground as it goes. A hail of stones rains down on her. She covers her heads with her hands, tries to catch her breath, and then the ground is exploding under her. Her staff is borne away on a landslide decidedly headed downhill.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The atronach—though it is not an atronach, not truly—has a body and four arms, a bit like a spider, and two of its arms are currently trying to crush her. She slips easily from its grasp, but she is still not completely free. Exhaling, she forces herself to focus after spooking herself with lurid mental images of the slick of blood and gore she’ll be if she doesn’t get it together quickly. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The first spell is to protect herself from the effects of her second: she casts a ward of frost resistance and then casts to summon ice on her hands. She grabs hold of the atronach’s body—its head—and latches on and however much it tries to buck her she is now stuck to it like a tongue to a frozen pole. The strain of double-casting is eased by how simple and precise her spells are. Still, it’s not exactly easy, and she is trying to use great care and caution to figure out what she is going to do next, before she ends up riding this stone atronach until it finally figures out she is much more soft and squishy than it and so is very much vulnerable to being smashed like a bug between it and something else hard. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>A haze of dark scarlet surrounds her, scatters when the atronach flinches, and then swarms into a shape that becomes Fennorian clinging to the other side of the creature’s head. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘Well, this is a bit of a situation,’ he observes, his voice noticeably higher than usual.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She nods, says, ‘Can you distract it? It’s not a daedra. I’ll need to dismantle it.’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘I shall do my best,’ he says, and that is all it takes. He erupts into a cloud of mist again that dissolves and then reforms several metres away. He attempts to hit the atronach with pitched rocks. He says things that she cannot hear.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Through gritted teeth she yells, ‘Try something else!’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So he does. A shower of lights bursts on one side of the atronach, and incandescent sparks whirl past her head like small, searing comets—on one cheek she can feel a burn begin to blossom. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But it is enough. She clambers over the stunned creature’s body, crawls down one of its arms, releases her ward and then infuses the limb in ice. Water drips into cracks, freezes, expands. The limb shatters and she falls to the ground with it, and the creature rolls over her and almost crushes her beneath it. The hobbled creature smashes into a jutting crag and she rolls out from under it with a mouthful of dirt to spit out. She does so as she staggers to her feet and moves to put distance between her and the atronach. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Fennorian is taking urgent steps towards her when stony limbs kick out at her like a foul-tempered horse. The edge of one catches her in the back. From the force of it she appears to fly into his outstretched arm trying to reach her. They slam down in a cloud of dust together, and gods, gods, gods it hurts, but he has her in his arms and, as if she weighed nothing at all, he is on his feet and carrying her to a place of relative safety. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>His hands go to her sides, she touches her lips, looks at her fingers and see’s no blood. She smiles, just slightly, and then swats at his searching fingers just before he would have brushed against the rib which is crunching in a way she is pretty sure it shouldn’t. ‘I’m fine. Just got the wind knocked out of me.’ </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Though frowning nods, once. He then presses several small glasses into her palm, curls her fingers around them with a squeeze, stands up, dissolves into mist and goes to distract the recovering creature. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She takes these precious seconds to gather herself, take stock: her staff is within snatching distance, and the concoctions in her hand are stoppered and marked with their effects. Restore health, restore magicka, a poison to damage the magicka of others. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>As if struck by something as inexplicable as lightning under a cold, cloudless sky, she has an idea </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It may not be a daedric thing, but it still is a thing of </span>
  <em>
    <span>magic. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>She pulls herself up and tells her protesting torso that she doesn’t have the time to deal with pain just at this moment. Moving quickly, she picks up her staff, pockets the potions, and uncorks the poison. She drenches the head of her staff with the glistening liquid that is thick and viscous and sticks to her weapon like barnacles to a rock.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>With her staff coated she pockets the now emptied phial too and closes her eyes. A string of words is murmured under her breath and she conjures images that remind her of vigour: a runner with determined eyes watching for a goal that reminds yet past the horizon, horses in stride, muscles clenched in avid anticipation. Her pulse quickens, her mind clears, and when she moves now it is with alacrity and ability guided by her own will-woven magic. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She bounds towards the creature which is preoccupied with trying to get Fennorian within smashing distance. It is distracted, and this allows her to climb up one of its arms which she straddles, steadies herself on, and then she drives her staff into the juncture between head and arm that serves as this construct’s shoulders. </span>
</p><p><span>It bucks wildly, but she grips tight with her legs and lets her staff go and fall away where it will. With both her hands now she grabs onto the stony surface, feels her palm slice open but doesn’t care. All it takes is a moment, and then she is crashing her will against the thing and then </span><em><span>pulling</span></em> <em><span>away.</span></em><span> This spell tugs at it—hopefully it snags on any misweaves, it might be able to unravel it. </span></p><p>
  <span>A miniscule tremor occurs. Then a fissure fractures into a crack that grows until weight and gravity are enough to do the rest. The arm breaks from the body, she lets go. All her thoughts are now flitting things anxious about getting away before she can be crushed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>That isn’t quite what happens.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rather, the creature pins her beneath it, catching her on her side with its body and one arm is pinioned beneath her, bones grinding together and the appendage useless to her now. She struggles, just for a moment, before realising that it is futile and she will not be able to writhe out from underneath its mass. The one hand that she can use she plants against the body holding her down. She then tries to think of something to do next. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>One of the creature’s arms is positioned right above her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It hovers there, poised to smash her head whenever it wants to. It sheds flecks of stone that fall into her eyes and conjure a blinding veil of tears within them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Distantly she hears what could be Fennorian’s voice echoing against the stony walls surrounding them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then, in the silence between her thundering heartbeats, she hears another voice. It is saying, ‘Stand down!’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘Call it off, then! It’s going to kill my friend!’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The stranger’s voice answers, but the response is not a thing which she can hear over the grinding the creature makes as it shifts its posture. It does not free her from its grasp, but she can catch her breath and the threat of being flattened against the ground is not as imminent as before. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>With both her arms free, she skims along the length of the injured one and attempts to ascertain how much of her has become busted. The cataloguing is a quick process—cracked ribs at least, what is going to end up becoming a terrifying bruise, and a shoulder mere degrees away from being dislocated. At least nothing feels torn. The word </span>
  <em>
    <span>friend</span>
  </em>
  <span> reverberates with an intensity she is too stressed to address.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In a storm of swarming blood-red flecks, Fennorian materialises next to her and pushes at the atronach which does not budge a millimeter. He then gets to his knees, looks at her with wide, wild eyes. His hand hover over her, lost somewhere between what to do and what he can do. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Murmuring, she says, ‘I’m fine. Just stuck.’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He simply looks at her, and then he nods, accepting what she is saying. Then he looks up towards someone who is obscured from her view. ‘Get your atronach to move! Please! We won’t fight you any longer.’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘What he said,’ she wheezes with a small gasp.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘How do I know I can trust you?’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘For the love of—’ He stops, clenches his hands and waits for his simmer to settle. ‘I am just a healer, and your atronach has already beat down the fighter among us. I need to tend to her wounds before she could so much as threaten a torchbug.’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This seems to mollify the stranger. The atronach drags itself off of her with its two remaining limbs, up the hill, and then goes still as if it were simply a large lump of stone. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>As soon as he can he leans down and makes to carry her, but he stops himself and looks to her askance. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She nods, seeing herself reflected in his vivid red eyes. He asks for, and receives, her permission to touch her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So he places one hand under her shoulders, one under her knees, and with great care and patience picks her up and takes her to where a majority of their belongings have been abandoned. During this short trip she wraps her arm around his neck to both steady and haul herself to a position where she can take a look at the stranger who called off the attacking magical construct. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Whom she sees in the rich dawn light is a Redguard judging by her hair and complexion. A woman, she would guess, but doesn’t decide because the world holds so much diversity within it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>As he lays her down against a rock she jests softly, ‘zero out of two isn’t that great of a record. But I swear I’m at least decent when the fight’s not an ambush.’ She winces, and with a stern frown he takes one more look at her. ‘Nothing fatal, I promise.’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘Drink this,’ he says, and hands her a potion.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So she does. And takes her time, because it tastes like a troll’s toe and the dry retching causes agonising tremors in her side. His attention remains firmly on her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The stranger who is coming towards them loses footing and slides on a small wave of gravel down closer towards them, into view. As she regains her footing Fennorian sits up a bit straighter and turns his back to Aislin but he does not move to leave her side. Aislin takes this moment to quaff the dregs of the potion with one last bilious gulp, holding her hands over mouth after. Heat begins to prick at her neck from the strain of willing herself to swallow.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But then the medicine is within her and instantaneously boosting the effects already diffusing warmly within her. She pokes and prods at herself and uses the surge of magicka to help her recovery along should Fennorian need her assistance in keeping himself safe.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The woman who is now before them is wearing rich robes that are dusty, but the peacock-hues are vibrant in the rising tide of morning light. The groined curves of her sharp cheekbones cast groined shadows across her face, her mouth and brow are shaped in a question she is gathering the right words to put to them, these two strange people before her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘What in Oblivion are you doing?’ she finally asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘I could ask you the same,’ Aislin says before Fennorian can answer. ‘What kind of way is that to treat guests?’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘Intruders, more like. Care to why I shouldn’t just have you both smeared into a stain right beneath my feet?’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Aislin’s about to answer, and then Fennorian looks at her and it is with a look she recognises as an augur of a reprimand. If she keeps going along the path she is on she will come to a point where she’s found she’s become the source of  his irritation. It’s quite impolite to show her such a face, she thinks, being that she’s not a child, but that’s not a hill worth standing on and trying to defend at this moment. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>So instead Aislin shrugs a little and then focuses on the stranger. Around her hovers a faint tint of orange and sulphuric yellow that blends in with the morning surrounding them all. She does not sense any taint or grasping from other realms. Which is prudent, given how easy it would be to slip into Oblivion here. With a blink the vision is released and the colours dissipate.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘We’re simply here to ask the mages who reside here a couple of questions. We are looking for someone and his trail has led us here,’ Fennorian says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘You’re not making a case for yourself.’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘We mean you no harm, really,’ Fennorian says, and his voice has raised at least an octave. He makes a gesture that is not exactly pleading, but he is exposing himself by being so earnest. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘Really? A vampire and a mage are found snooping around your doorstep… You’re telling me you wouldn’t be suspicious?’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘—That’s a very interesting atronach you have,’ Aislin cuts in. She has dealt with this conversation enough: really, it’s obnoxious to listen to considering that Fennorian had been the one to tell her that he wished to avoid stepping around a topic before. ‘It’s not really an atronach, is it, but some sort of construct?’ Aislin says, and both the stranger and Fennorian are looking at her now with surprisingly similar expressions. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘What are you getting at?’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘I know what it is—I may not be a vampire or a skilled summoner, but I’m not a pushover. I know that you didn’t summon this thing. At least—</span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span> didn’t.’ She pauses for a moment, hoping that the silence seems like a statement rather than a pause for her to allow herself the space to make a decision: will she guess, or not? Several things have lined up in her mind like a serendipitous convergence: Fennorian is after a necromancer who is interested in nirncrux and its ability to engender life when its power can be tapped, a necromancer has been rumoured to have been through here, and they have happened upon a magical construct that is not quite anything she has ever seen before. There is too much here to be merely a coincidence.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She looks to Fennorian. Whatever he might be thinking, it is not a desperate desire for her to silence herself, so that’s something.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She leans forward a fraction of a degree towards the Redguard. ‘I’m guessing, in fact, that it was made by the man we are here to enquire after.’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For a while nothing happens beyond the continued rise of the sun and the chirrups of birds talking to each other about lives that have nothing to do with the three persons engaged in their tense affair. Then, slowly, the woman approaches them. Fennorian stiffens, then shifts, and Aislin does something she supposes he wouldn’t expect. She lays a hand on his forearm, to tell him that it is all right, that she is all right. And he relaxes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘Who are you, exactly?’ the woman asks. She is much less defensive now: she has hunched over and is not standing over them and the many braids of her black hair have draped over her shoulder or fallen down her back. There is a curious light in her hazel eyes—and, if Aislin is not mistaken, relief has eased the crinkles around her eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘My name’s Aislin Lesravn, and this is Fennorian Ravenwatch. I’m a paranormal investigator, and he’s sort of like an investigator too, but of the arcane.’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘Rather odd professions.’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘Everyone has to make a living,’ Aislin answers with a straight face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘Mmm, so they do. My name is Adusei. The man you are looking for—Tiniyin—he and his partner have been gone for weeks, and good riddance to them. We cannot help you.’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Aislin wonders, just for a moment, who his partner may be. But she is too slow putting the pieces together to ask before the chance is gone in the space of a breath.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After an exhale, Fennorian asks, ‘Did he have a laboratory or study? Anything like that at all? If so, please, just let us take a quick look.’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘And what would we get in exchange, for doing you this favour?’ Adusei asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It is now that Aislin can finally—through only grinding teeth—pull herself up, place her palms on the ground, and stand herself up. As if prompted Adusei mirrors her action. Fennorian remains crouched, doing something which Aislin cannot see. Presently she is focused on the woman before her, staring at her, before breaking the lock of their gazes and sizing up the crags around them which are a defense, but not impenetrable. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘We’ll make sure that everyone in Belkarth and Dragonstar know that </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span> aren’t necromancers. The common folk may not like daedra being summoned in their backyard, but necromancers breed a whole other sort of resentment. A mob with pitchforks type. You know that’s true, whether you like it or not.’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At this Adusei remains silent. She places a hand on her shoulder, ruminates, then steps back. ‘Wait here. Someone will come to get you. You will go to his study, have your look around, and then leave. Is that clear?’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘As a bell,’ Aislin says evenly. She watches Adusei depart.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then she drops to her knees and grinds her teeth again. ‘Mara’s mercy, that was unpleasant.’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘That is certainly one word for it,’ Fennorian says. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When she looks to him she realises that he has been collecting their things. He hands her her staff, her bag, and her cloak which had caught and had its clasp broken at some point.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She looks around for her theodolite, frowns, and then sticks her tongue out at the now quiescent construct. If it is still watching them this doesn’t immediately aggravate it, but Fennorian doesn’t want to take any chances. He huffs and she relents with a quick simper.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘What? It’s not like it has feelings. It’s a blasted rock with magic making its limbs move.’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘Is that really all it is?’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘I promise you. If it were daedric I would have kicked it back to Oblivion a long time ago without any need to beat on it.’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘Hmmm…’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘We can check it though, if you want to be sure.’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘...As long as we don’t provoke it. Anyway, your information was good. Tiniyin was one of the aliases our man used.’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘Hah! Nords may be drunk lugs, but at least they are usually honest ones!’ Aislin says loudly, enthusiastically, her voice echoes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Fennorian twitches and looks like he might contradict her. But then he shakes his head and stands up too. Somehow his journal is already out. ‘Let’s take a look at that atronach. Or construct, whatever it may be.’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Aislin nods and gathers her staff and rucksack with a hitched inhalation. Fennorian gestures with his hand and she shakes her head—she can and will carry it. They won’t be going that far. Her shoulder is still mending.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The walk is mostly a quick clamber up a slanted shelf of sand and gravel segmented by small, thin rills cut by what little rain falls here. At the base of the crag there is a relatively flat bit where the construct has folded itself up against some other rocks and effectively camouflaged itself. They are lucky that they were able to watch where it went to settle.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Aislin is slow to put her things down, paying more attention to Fennorian’s quick and methodical examination which has already begun than her own actions. He is the arcane investigator of the pair, and she is acutely aware that she hadn’t sensed anything saliently odd about the construct when she was tussling with it. She might have missed something he might easily see with his honed and experienced senses.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And with the way he’s going about things, she thinks he might just lick the rocks too. Which would be hilarious, something which she does not want to miss fussing to keep herself from hurting too much.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She realises she is grinning a bit when Fennorian exhales and makes a breathless sound of exclamation. Her name sounds like a single syllable flowing from his mouth: ‘Aislin. Come take a look. What do you make of this?’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She drops her staff and moves to squat at his side, as drawn to him as if she were a summoned and bound animus herself. His hands are laid with fingers splayed over the main body of the construct. An incandescence from his palms illuminates the rough surface and reveals to her eyes a faint shimmer of spell work so subtle and powerful it’s a wonder to behold.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘Magnificent,’ she breathes. She lays her hand on the stone and marvels. ‘How could I have missed that?’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As she stares at the weft and weave of the spell work the more and more details are laid bare to her by Fennorian’s own spell. The shimmer resolves into thousands of quivering filaments rotating together in a hundred directions. They are dense as muscle fibers, though a great deal stronger. They are the stuff of sorcery distilled into a pure and unerring science. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But it is beneath this lucent lattice that the true masterwork lies. What she thought to be a single layer of white-blue light is actually a sea of stars: each one tiny, and radiant, perfect. If they had any mass at all she imagines that the weight of the construct would cause it to plummet through layers and layers of solid rock into the darkest places of Nirn.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>With a spell of her own she attempts, tentatively, to tug at the bindings of the construct. Absolutely nothing about it is affected. The currents continue along their courses. The stars and unperturbed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She tries again. This time the spell doesn’t fight her—it simply blasts her back without so much a ripple in its placid flow.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Fennorian’s head snaps in her direction. She staggers to her feet, waving with her hand to dismiss her concern.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After catching her breath she says, ‘Have you ever seen anything like it?’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘Never. It’s….it seems to be pure magicka bound and bonded to someone’s will. This matrix is…there are </span>
  <em>
    <span>matrices</span>
  </em>
  <span>!’ he exclaims, eyes wide and alert as he looks to her in his excitement.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She studies the magical thing before her. ‘Magic holding together magic? It sounds like it shouldn’t work, but it does, doesn’t it? All of these layers working together. Who do you think designed this?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘Someone very powerful, obviously, but also someone...profoundly old. I can’t quite get my thumb on it, but what this is is...well, arcane. It seems to me to share some qualities with the lost magic of the Dawn. How it is so is...hard to explain.’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘As most magic is,’ she adds, and he nods back, and there is between them a wealth of knowledge and experience, and still whatever this is at their hands, is something epochs beyond their ken and ability. They know this without any hint of being defeated by it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘I can’t imagine that this was achieved without nirncrux in some matter, or some other immensely powerful catalyst.’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘I think—‘ Aislin begins and stops when someone behind them clears their throat. They swivel around in marvelous synchronicity and look at the person who is waiting for them. It appears to be an exceedingly short bosmeri woman who says, ‘This one is here to escort you in and out.’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She is an Ohmes, then. The first Aislin has seen outside of Elsweyr, and at this she marvels for a moment too: how wondrous are the many furstock of the Khajiit who are tied inextricably to the phases of the moons. Fennorian has the decency to elbow her out of her reverie. He is, however, reluctant to let go of his spell and conceal again the work of an artist, necromancer or not. But he does relinquish it, and they both get up and follow after collecting to them their nearly forgotten things.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>.</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They are presently following in the tracks of a dangerous necromancer. Something which is not evident in either of their demeanours as they are ushered more than led to said necromancer’s former study. Along the way are sights to make any antiquarian foam with envy: clusters of Varla stones each larger than their heads, glittering tableaux of the constellations progressing through the seasons, a poem graven into a wall in Ayleidoon in the form of a Nedic epic. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Aislin knows that she is presenting herself as childish to this Ohmes woman—perhaps even as puerile—but it is hard to help herself. She is something of a hall of mirrors with Fennorian at her side. Whenever she tries to straighten her face and not stare too long at some wonder, he points two or ten things out and it is not possible to not be thrilled by such remarkable sights. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then, just as they have passed another wonder, Aislin will feel a pulse or echo of magic, traces of a spell still lingering, or, once, a portal which punches through the liminal barrier and all the way to some realm of Oblivion. The portal is promptly closed so she cannot discern what the realm might have been, but he is still fascinated nonetheless by her noting of this occurrence. It is a revelation to him that she has such an ability. He tells her, 'Remind me to ask you about that later.' </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The woman rolls her eyes at them. Constantly. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eventually they are led underground again and to what is a relatively small chamber. 'This was his lair. I'll be waiting outside when you are done.'</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As all rooms do in an Ayleid ruin, the chamber soars well above anyone's head. Shadows shroud the vaulted corners where the light of Varla stones entombed behind ironwork does not reach. There is a desk and a chair and a table strewn with the detritus of spells and alchemy. The only thing that is remarkable is the sheer potency of the evil she finds herself stepping into.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Aislin whimpers, and Fennorian is turning to her as soon as she has a foot over the threshold.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>'What was done here, I...'</span>
</p><p>
  <span>'You can sense it?'</span>
</p><p>
  <span>'Yes. Very much so.' She says this very softly, her words lost to her own ears by the cacophony of spectral screams still haunting this space. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>'I had no idea you were so sensitive to magicka. You will have to let me ask you some questions about this too, later.'</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She nods meekly and continues into the room after setting her staff against the wall and dropping her bag off--at least her shoulder is nearly healed. He does the same with his belongings, strides to the centre of the room, and looks up at the enshrouded eight-point ceiling. He runs a finger through the dust which has accreted on the unused table. Then he makes his way over to the desk, bends over, and starts handling the drawers. By the time she has made it to the room’s centre he has pulled a drawer out and popped open a false bottom. There are several slim leather-bound volumes he carefully removes and places on the desk after first wiping its surface with his sleeve.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>'Child's play,' he says brightly. He clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth and adds, ‘This should be easy to read as well. He’s used the same cypher again.’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Curious despite her tremulous state, Aislin comes over to take a look at the journals. Fennorian has laid them open and is scratching his chin. She studies the crammed pages bustling with lines of script wending their way around diagrams as precise as if they had been drawn with rulers and stencils. She turns through the pages of one of the journals and finds what she recognises as charts depicting magicka in different states of flow. One is the laminar flow of the stars. Another is a current littered with eddies not unlike disturbances caused by Oblivion portals. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The last one is a complicated composite of interlinked channels she does not at all recognise. She points to the writing on the page and asks, ‘Can you tell me what this says? I think it might be important.’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After studying the page for a moment Fennorian nods, goes to get one of his journals, and returns to lay it out above the encoded text. ‘Yes. What do you think it is?’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘I think it is an outline of the spell we saw earlier.’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘I could see that. It looks a lot like the outer layer of the binding. Give me a moment...Odd. It seems our man definitely incorporated nirncrux in his sorcery, but I can’t make out how. This is a Nedic word I don’t know.’ He taps the page several times. ‘If I had to guess, it would be “vessel,” but the context doesn’t make any sense. “Vessel of the celestials.” He must have made an error. He must have meant to write “vessels of the celestial”, which still doesn’t help. Perhaps this is a reference to some sort of religious object used in the ritual? Maybe a chalice?’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘...Is it possible that first phrase you translated was actually correct? ‘Vessel of the Celestials.’ The Nedes of Craglorn had something of a unique religion—they worshipped beings they called Celestials.’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘—Ah! Yes, the embodiments of the constellations themselves they believed could walk the face of Nirn. Even so, that doesn’t elucidate the meaning of this passage for me. I apologise.’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘There’s no need. You might just need a bit more time and context,’ Aislin says with a faint smile. ‘There’s still so much here to read. Maybe there will also be a clue about where he’s gone.’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘He went to Belkarth,’ the Ohmes woman interjects. She has popped her head into the doorway and is squinting at them. ‘Do you have everything you need?’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘Yes. Though, can you tell us why he went to Belkarth? Fennorian has made the journals vanish into his care. This dexterity is not surprising to Aislin—she simply shrugs when she realises they are no longer in front of her. She begins making her way towards her things left near the entrance of the room.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘To bother someone else,’ the woman answers. ‘He said our library was not enough, and moved on after his time among us was done.’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘The Star-Gazers! He went to get their texts. There’s no doubt in my mind,’  Aislin says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Silence has settled. It is disturbed only when the woman shrugs. ‘Sounds like you should get a move on then. This one will help you on your way.’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And they do go, finding a way between them to get on with their pursuit despite the cloudless sky of the coming day.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Without much grace Fennorian falls to the ground in a lump. Next comes two bags simultaneously—one falls on his backside, and one onto his head. Groaning, he rolls over and shoves the backpacks off. He lays back down on his stomach to settle his nerves. Then, with a wibble in the slice of light hovering above him, the portal dumps Aislin out in a tangle of limbs and cloak right next to him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Finally, her staff falls and clunks her on the head. With a short mercurial hiss the portal closes behind them—reality is quite aurally happy to be righted after their transgression.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Aislin clutches her head in her hands and mumbles, ‘gods, I hate portal magic. It’s the absolute worst.’ Her fingers pull at her hair as nausea undulates through her. Everything is a bit blurry around the edges, the limen wobbling awkwardly where her circumpenetration had humped up against the barrier and strained the mesh of reality.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘It’s still impressive that you can do it,’ Fennorian says. He pulls himself up, and pulls his cloak tightly against his form.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘Bleugh,’ is what she responds to him with. She simply lets the world spiral around her until it decides to behave itself and settle down. ‘There’s a good reason why I don’t use it often. Especially for distances like this.’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The rest of her complaints are mumbled to the tufts of dry grass beneath her. They have been deposited in the shadow of an empty stable. A sheer wall of rock looms behind them. Between the building and cliff-face, they have managed to land in a cool gloom that offers both some protection and some privacy from the sounds of the town that reach them. There is also the rush of a waterfall which must be nearby. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When she finally feels like she’s a drained person rather than a floppy bit of seaweed stuck in a roaring tide, Aislin rolls over onto her back and releases a sigh to the sky. ‘We didn’t think about whether you can even enter the observatory, did we?’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘No, we did not,’ Fennorian confirms with a frown. ‘That is a bit of an oversight, isn’t it?’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘I’m going to have to go in alone, won’t I?’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘Not necessarily.’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘But it will be easiest, won’t it?’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘Probably.’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘Ugh.’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The absolute last thing she wishes to be at just this moment is social. But—how else is she going to get the information which they need in a timely manner? This is effectively a hypothetical question which she ponders as she makes her way to the observatory’s excessively tall doors.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>.</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>‘Uh, hello?’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The echoed greeting sounds to her sardonic as it comes back to her through the halls of the apparently empty building. It is volumes louder than her footsteps as she approaches the centre of the building that opens up underneath a red-painted dome. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She stands there, looking around, trying to find anyone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As she waits in the silence and the stillness of mid-morning, an aged tapestry on a wall catches her eye. For all that time may have dulled the colour of its threads, its many hues of gold shine bright as any gem. There are depicted three figures moving in a tide against a hooded snake reared up and striking. The Thief, the Warrior, and The Mage rising up to defeat the Serpent—it is the Nedic tale of the Celestials who were their guardians.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It is a human tale.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And yet, it is undoubtable to her that, inexplicably, the Mage is portrayed as a stately, alarmingly beautiful Altmeri woman.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Not only is strange, it snags on her as an important and significant detail that she doesn’t fully understand yet. But it means </span>
  <em>
    <span>something</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Not because it has to, but because it does.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘Hello?’ She tries again, and waits.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Finally she hears a door open and footsteps towards her. A harried, disheveled young human leans over the second-storey railing and stares down at her as if she were a feral animal who somehow managed to find her way inside. After a moment his eyes widen and he straightens up a touch.. ‘Who let you in? No-one here is supposed to be up this early.’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘Well, no-one let me in. So there you go,’ Aislin answers. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘We accidentally left the door unlocked, then. I’m going to have to ask you to leave. You can come back later, around noon—’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘Look, please. I need to know something and I need to know it quickly,’ Aislin says, and her voice is becoming louder, the echoes more resonant. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The man does not look appeased. He puts a hand to mouth and rolls his eyes. ‘We were up last night performing a ritual. None of us has gotten more than two hours of sleep.’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘I’m sorry for that, but—’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘But nothing.’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘This is about Skyreach Pinnacle,’ she says, growing louder and caring. ‘My associate and I are tracking a necromancer who might be headed there. Whatever that means, we’re pretty sure it’s not good. We think he might have used or stolen some of your books to learn about ancient Nedic rituals--’ </span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘And where is your proof of this?’ He is clearly not happy with her and wishing, above all else, to get tunnel back under his covers and sleep. ‘It’s absurd, and you should leave right now.’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘There, my proof is </span>
  <em>
    <span>there</span>
  </em>
  <span>!’ Aislin takes one step forward but her body, her arm, her weight, is thrown towards the tapestry and it is so </span>
  <em>
    <span>obvious</span>
  </em>
  <span> now. How could she have missed it? It is as astonishing as it is terrifying.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He looks utterly baffled. Also, displeased.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘Listen to me. You had a pretty shady guy come through here recently. He was Imperial, or maybe just looked it, probably was using a fake name, and was accompanied by a gorgeous Altmeri woman whom he had no business being in the presence of. Am I right?’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He doesn't answer. She touches her hand to her cheek and winches at the singed skin she had forgotten.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She continues, ‘Well, this is going to sound absurd, yes, but I think that woman was—well, the Mage. Somehow. But whoever she is she’s capable of insanely powerful magic and I think he has her bound to her will and they are going to Skyreach Pinnacle and we should probably stop them before something bad happens.’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As she watches him she clenches her fists and grinds her teeth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Very calmly, he says, ‘There are wards there. They were restored only a few years ago.’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And so her patience craters, a bright quick thing, burning to almost nothing before it impacts and buries its remains in scorched earth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘Fine! Don’t help us! Let the world burn so you can get a bit of beauty sleep!’ She breathes loudly and angrily, she pulls Fennorian’s journal out and chucks it up at the Star-Gazer. It ascends a few feet with its pages flapping in a small arc. And then it hits the ground with a soft thud. They both stare at its lifeless body.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Absolutely red now she has only one last thing to say. ‘You can do whatever you want, just don’t say you weren’t warned!’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>With that she turns on her heels and leaves She finds Fennorian, and though he has questions and wants to know where his journal is, she’s so riled up that she forgets how much she hates portals, punches a hole in reality, herds him through with shepherding gestures and then follows through herself after saluting the observatory with a vulgar gesture goodbye.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>. . .</b>
</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>